


If You See Me, Please Just Walk On By

by InfluentialPineapple



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angry Steve Rogers, Arc Reactor, Arc Reactor Issues, Body Horror, Fever, Flashbacks, Gen, Hospitalization, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Procedures, Medical Trauma, Nightmares, Past Torture, Poor Tony, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Iron Man 3, Prompt Fill, Protective Jarvis, Steve Rogers Feels, Tony Angst, Tony Feels, Triggers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-27 05:48:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 28,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfluentialPineapple/pseuds/InfluentialPineapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every once in a while, the Arc Reactor becomes too unbearable for Tony to even haul himself out of bed, and he takes a day. Because he deserves that much at least, right?</p><p>Unfortunately, the team doesn't quite understand.</p><p>Written for AvengerKink prompt: http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/17385.html?thread=38897129#t38897129</p><p>ON TEMPORARY HIATUS</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Original Prompt: (Kinda Spoilery I suppose)
> 
> Every now and then, like twice a year or so, Tony has a bad day. The arc reactor hurts more than usual and he spends the day in bed, half delirious from a pain-induced fever, half lost in the flashbacks it triggers. He doesn't care to eat cos everything has to pass the reactor... it's all just too much. He's definitely not up for a stint as Iron Man.
> 
> The others don't know this. They think he's just having a lazy day in bed and are willing to let him have it, as he usually lacks sleep due to the long hours he spends in his workshop. Until there's a call to assemble.
> 
> Que misunderstandings, angry, disappointed Steve and protective JARVIS while his creator is incapacitated.

_ghosting along the dubious boundaries of consciousness, wading through dark shadows thick as mud, pulling limbs from it, fighting the suction as it tries to inhale him back in_

_he hears himself cry out_

_voices all around him, many of them forceful, insistent. Angry words that he doesn't recognize spoken in a tongue familiar but indistinguishable_

_one of them soothing, soft, a pillow in the center of a bed of nails_

_he gasps. The smell of copper and rust is overwhelming. Mingling with dirt and shit_

_there's pain in his chest, pain which rises into steady pounding, searing agony of which he is unable to coherently describe_

_oh god_

_he screams. He can feel ruthless hands holding him down, the voices become louder, more panicked. His chest is exploding_

_he tries to reach up to stop whatever is happening but finds his wrists bound next to him by cruel straps. Tossing his head only makes it worse, strains the offending area_

_and opening his eyes only graces him with a brief moment of blurred horrific imagery, of gloved hands lowering a black object into a pool of bright red_

_he screams again_

"Sir!"

When he wakes, he doesn't bolt upright as usual, but his terrified shout is loud enough to make him thankful for sound-proof walls. Gasping raggedly, sheets drenched in his sweat, Tony just lays there and stares wide-eyed at the ceiling, fluid recollections of his nightmare eroding the already compromised shores of his composure. 

"Jesus..." He breathes, one shaking hand coming up to wipe at stinging eyes. "That was a bad one." 

And then his next breath comes with a hitch and a long groan as he realizes why such old memories had dragged themselves up with hooked claws from the pit he'd thrown them in. The arc reactor isn't willing to play ball with him today, sitting heavily in the cavernous hole, the hole carved out of him against his will. Lungs refuse to expand properly, ribs rubbed raw by his recent twisting and maneuvering in the suit, and painful internal swelling as his body attempts to reject the culpable implant. What a terrible, terrible privilege. 

Tony sits up a little, propped against some pillows, and pulls his shirt down to inspect it. Yup, there it is. Bruising and swelling all around the glowing blue of the arc reactor, a sight all too familiar to him. It looks like a perfectly circular lake had been dropped smack dab in the center of a cracked and spoiled nuclear wasteland. 

Funny, because the damn thing came out of a cracked and spoiled wasteland. Pretty much the worst souvenir ever. 

Tony sighs, winces when the movement irritates the newly raw skin around the arc reactor, and lays back down, resigning himself to the unavoidable hours of recuperation he requires so his body can return to normal.

Or what he refers to as a mockery of normalcy. His body would never be normal again.

"Sir, Captain Rogers requests your presence in the lounge." JARVIS says, tone lowered so as to not prematurely induce the migraine he knew his creator would eventually have to suffer through. 

Tony drapes an arm over squinted eyes, growling in frustration as pain shoots like electricity through the limb, originating from the hellish tomb in his sternum. He grits his teeth. "Not sure I could get up if I wanted to. Tell him I'm busy."

"I already have, sir."

Tony smiles through the pain which is now becoming worse with every inhale. Sharp, redundant, annoying. His A.I. is the absolute shit, knows Tony like the back of his own circuit board, is capable of sensing when he's in too much pain to do much else aside from laying there. "Thanks, J." He pants, staying stock still on his back to prevent movement induced agony. "I think it's gonna be one of those days."

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Steve frowns at the ceiling, because really, he doesn't know what else to frown at when it comes to JARVIS. A camera? A kitchen appliance? This new era is strange to him.

"Where is he?" He asks skeptically. He's already visited the garage only to find it empty and desolate, lacking the palpable energy Tony normally exudes when he works. And typically when Pepper's away, the garage becomes Tony's temporary place of residence, sleeping, showering and taking three meals a day in there. So 'busy' isn't going to cut it for Steve.

"Mr. Stark is in his bedroom, Captain. I expect he will remain there for the duration of the day." JARVIS answers. Steve gives a grunt of surprise and shares a puzzled glance with the others. 

"I wonder what's up." he says and four sets of shoulders shrug at him from various positions around the table before digging into plates filled with eggs and bacon and toast. 

"He's just being lazy." Clint says through a mouthful of eggs. "Probably drank too much last night."

Natasha shoots him an incredulous glare. "Tony Stark,  _lazy_?" She challenged, jabbing her fork in his direction. "Have you ever seen the man  _not_  working?"

"Or eating?" Bruce chimes in, poking his own eggs around his plate idly, and looking at Clint pointedly over his glasses. "He never misses a meal, and when he's not eating breakfast, lunch or dinner, he's constantly snacking. Come to think of it, this might be the first time he hasn't come down for breakfast since I moved in here."

Steve considers this quietly. Meal times are the only moments of reprieve Tony normally allows himself from his seemingly endless work and Banner is correct, he never misses one. Even on his busiest days. Even when he is so deliriously sleep deprived that lucid conversation eludes him, he still shows up to consume impressive amounts of food and banter incoherently with them with a slight slur and jerky movements. Death himself can't keep Tony from a good meal.   

Clint rolls his eyes. "Well it's not like he died or something." He says with tones of apathy. "Stark can take care of himself." 

Thor finishes his orange juice in no more than two gulps and places the cup on the table. "He is merely fatigued due to our recent battle." he states, as though it's fact. Steve arches an eyebrow at him. "Even the most hardened warriors must rest their minds and bodies periodically from the burden of constant war."

Is that it? Steve looks away with a contemplative furrowed brow. He knows Tony continues to struggle with nightmares and anxiety from the incident with Loki. And certainly, back to back missions with varying degrees of intensity, mental stress and physical consequences aren't fostering proper recuperation time following such a traumatic incident. Perhaps it's all become too much for him. After all, he's a civilian amongst a group of seasoned warriors. With the exception of Bruce, of course, but the man seems zen enough to be accepted into monk-hood. Maybe Tony's writhing in distress and he's calling out for help silently.

Or maybe he has a cold. It could be anything. Steve sighs. "I don't think we should worry about it right now."

"Who's worried?" Clint places his fork on his empty plate and sits back in his chair with his arms crossed. At Steve's disapproving scowl, he shrugs. "He does weird things all the time, Cap. If I freaked out every time Tony Stark did something out of the ordinary, I'd be in a mental institution by Friday." 

"I second that." Bruce says with a smile. "But in my case, New York would be in ruins by Wednesday." 

Anxiety diminishing due to his friends' light humor, Steve allows himself to chuckle. "Yeah, I guess that's true. Tony Stark is an unreadable enigma."

They all exchange endeared smiles, and Steve finds himself wondering just what the hell Fury had been thinking when he'd labeled Tony unsuitable for the Avengers Initiative. Ironically enough, Tony's unpredictability is the glue which binds them all together. Keeps them united.

Mostly because it takes at least five people to wrangle him. 


	3. Chapter 3

Positioning himself on his side proves to be a painful, nauseating task, but Tony's found that remaining on his back much longer is an impossibility. The Arc Reactor is pressing down into his chest like a boulder, constricting his lungs and leaving him gasping. 

He's sweating profusely as he turns slowly to his left, the blanket twisting beneath shaking legs, kicked off long ago once the anticipated fever had gained purchase. Gingerly, he settles with a long groan, eyes squinted and watering with pain. The migraine he'd predicted is sprouting, roots traveling slowly through his skull, tendrils of despair almost sentient in their escapade into his brain. 

There's a bottle of Ibuprofin in his nightstand drawer but he's not sure he can swallow anything, the pain he knows will occur as mere liquid passes beneath the reactor too daunting to even consider. The prospect of eating is like a fairytale in his mind.

"Sir, temperature has spiked to one-hundred, two degrees." JARVIS offers quietly, underlying tones of concern evident, but Tony still flinches at the sound regardless, his entire face pounding a drum beat of misery. 

"Dim the lights." He whispers, and as JARVIS does so,  _oh god_ , it's just like that fucking cave. His own bedroom manifests into a thing of his nightmares before his eyes. He clenches them shut with a moan.  _Jesus, not again_.

Icy hands of a distant arabian night grasp him and he shivers violently, toes curling around the blanket and pulling it up slowly so he can reach it without having to actually bend down. He pulls the soft, thick comforter up to his shoulders with a moan because, dammit, he's aggravated the arc reactor anyway. Just moving is like being tortured. He would know.

Five minutes later, he's pushing it back off with an exasperated snarl, because his fever is a bipolar fucking asshole, not allowing him to find comfort in either heat nor cold. His skin feels like he has a massive sunburn. 

He's uncomfortable again, and moves to turn onto his back once more. Slowly, slowly, slowly-

"Fuck!" He shouts, eyes stinging with the frustration at his inability to get comfortable as maneuvering to his back and laying stiff just brings the same unbearable suffering as before. Tony's so tired, so goddamn beat, and all he wants to do is sleep it away but there's a man standing beside him, and, shit,  _he's holding a surgical saw,_  balding, glasses, smiling kindly, sadly. The saw whirs to life, the blade spinning wickedly, lowering towards his chest and Tony cries out, panics-

"Sir, fever has spiked to one-hundred, three point five." 

Tony blinks and the man is gone.  _Yinsen is gone_. His chest heaves, and it only brings him more agony. It's been quite a while since he's seen Yinsen. Usually, he's not this frightened of him. 

He sweats like a cold water bottle on a hot summer's day. Shivering, he pulls the blanket up. Burning, he kicks it back off. Boxers and a tank top are providing nothing to him. "JARVIS..." He grinds out, arms spread on either side of him, eyes unwilling to open. "JARVIS, is- is it infected?" He's gasping again. The arc reactor hasn't bothered him this badly since... since-

"It appears to be merely irritated at the moment, sir, but it wouldn't hurt to continue scanning your torso periodically for early signs of infection." JARVIS pauses, and Tony languishes, a single tear creeping out from behind the impenetrable barrier of his stubborn resolve. Tony is tough as nails, but there's only so much pain over so much time he could handle before carnal instinct claimed him. And Yinsen's sudden appearance has shaken him to his most vulnerable core. He knows he's been feeling this way, and steadily getting worse, for at least two hours. Or maybe three. He's not entirely sure, come to think of it. "You should seriously consider taking an NSAID as soon as you're physically capable, if only to bring down your fever." 

"I got that, J." He gasps. The pain is incredible. Darkness plays at his peripheral. A dancing tribe of shadowed figures...

" _They will never find you in these mountains..."_

"Is there anything at all I can do?" JARVIS asks, ever helpful. Ever caring for Tony. Forever concerned for his wellbeing.  

" _You have until tomorrow to assemble my missile_..."

_Oh god, that's not enough time. Please, I'll need more time._

"Just keep the others away." Tony murmurs just before unconsciousness envelopes him. A soothing respite from multiple sources of intolerable affliction. If only for a few moments.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Noticeably devoid of their most animated teammate, the conference room is quiet. It’s _too_ quiet, almost eerily so, as Steve’s eyes scan the four others in attendance, before falling to rest on Tony’s empty chair. None of them say anything, making it a point to avoid his irritated gaze at all cost, as they all seem to have uncovered the mystery of life in the floor beneath the table.

He glances at his watch and frowns. In twenty seconds Tony will officially be late for a meeting he’d sworn he would attend. The one he promised Steve he’d be at to make up for all the _other_ times he’d forgotten. The man has a terrible habit of forgetting nearly everything, with the exception of how to be a complete pain in Steve’s neck. Tony’s mind never seems to unwittingly expunge _that_ little tidbit of information from his prejudiced hippocampus. For the past three weeks, Tony has blown off every weekly briefing Steve has held, with varied excuses such as; “Cap, I could never administer enough caffeine intravenously for something like that without dying, and I _truly_ enjoy living.”

He’d actually said that, as though it were a real concern, with a face straight as uncooked spaghetti. If Steve hadn’t been so exasperated, he would’ve laughed.

3... 2… 1… His watch beeps 1200 and he sighs, closing his eyes only for a moment to compose himself. Opening them, he finds the four other members of his team wearing nearly identical, grimacing looks of ‘well, _we_ didn’t expect anything different.’

Clint leans forward, places his elbows on the table, interlocks his fingers and raises a wary eyebrow at Steve. “Please don’t tell me we have to wait for him… _again_.” He says with only a little ire. “There seriously can’t be anything that spectacularly exciting to put out.”

Steve glowers at him. “It’s not about the information.” He says hotly, eyes narrowed. Clint rolls his own and looks away with an annoyed huff. “It’s about syncing up as a team. Every time he blows us off like this, it’s like he’s spitting right in our faces.”

“He’s a busy guy, Cap.” Natasha says quietly, her arms folded over her chest, expression stoic as blue orbs swivel smoothly over him. “It isn’t like this is a new thing, and I really think you should calm down about it.”

Shaking his head and feeling like he’s completely alone in his way of thinking, Steve stands, because _forget these guys_ , he has a profane genius to track down, soon to be choking on a piece of Steve’s irate mind. “Where is he, JARVIS?” He nearly growls, looking to the ceiling. He hears Bruce scoff quietly.

“Mr. Stark is currently working in the garage.” JARVIS replies, smooth, serene voice washing over the tense situation like a peaceful mountain stream. Steve turns on his heel, moving to head towards the door.

“Steve,” Bruce says sternly, and Steve halts his advance and turns to look at him, jaw clenched. He’s regarded pointedly by cautionary hazel eyes. “It’s not that big of a deal. Tony shows up for every single mission, in fact he’s usually the _first person_ on location, and that’s the important part, right?” Sitting back, he shrugs and offers a hopeless half-smile. “This _is_ Tony we’re talking about. And trust me, the day he misses a call to assemble is the day I storm his garage right alongside you. But for now, it’s not that important.”

Steve runs a hand through flawless, blond locks and releases another sigh. Sure, Tony never misses a mission, during which he is always an invaluable asset to the team. He’s a true, proven hero and a damn good friend, but when someone promises Steve something, they’d best be prepared to deliver on that promise. He’s left many unredeemed promises hanging in the stratosphere, those who’d uttered them either dead or dying, forever incapable of following through, their words trapped in inescapable purgatory.  Allowing a _living_ individual to break something as sacred to him as a promise is unacceptable in Steve’s mind.

Promises are a painful thing for him.

“I’m just gonna check on him.” He says after a moment, his anger hidden beneath a rock of intense calm, and leaves before anyone else decides to grumble protestations at him.

He steps into the elevator across the hallway from the conference room and descends to Tony’s garage, where he finds the usually crystal clear glass exterior tinted completely out. With a frown and a furrowed brow, because Tony hasn’t blacked out his workshop in quite a while, Steve approaches the door and knocks lightly.

“Mr. Stark is conducting a teleconference consultation with a very important client, Captain Rogers.” JARVIS informs him. “He’s asked that he not be disturbed.”

Steve gets the distinct impression that he’s being played, but keeps himself from knocking even louder nonetheless. Tony and his unflappably loyal artificial intelligence are an efficient team, and Steve knows that JARVIS will provide cover for his creator as long as the situation isn’t life threatening. Sometimes, it leaves him feeling like he’s been ganged up on, despite the fact that JARVIS merely consists of very intricate lines of code.

The excuse is a good one, possibly even valid, but it’s been used before and last Steve’s heard, Tony doesn’t really interact with new clients any more. Pepper does. Steve’s no idiot, regardless of how often Tony attempts to perpetuate that assumption, and he recognizes avoidance when he sees it. “Just let him know I want to talk to him as soon as he’s done, please.” It’s a quiet request, certainly not an accurate representation of how annoyed he is.

“Of course, Captain.” JARVIS replies, and Steve walks away, cracking his knuckles impulsively as he enters the elevator.


	5. Chapter 5

_body locks up in response to the screech of a banshee, the sound of it oddly familiar, but his panicked mind can’t put a name to it_

_his ears bleed. He feels the warmth of it, like some heinous caress upon startlingly unhealthy pallor. Everything sounds like he’s under water, and yet he’s being told to ‘breathe, breathe,’ like it’s a possibility_

_he’s lowered back gently, slowly, in a twisted display of faux compassion, of perverse tenderness_

_and that voice. The voice is familiar, but the monster that rounds the end of the couch and grins at him, flashing crooked fangs, is not. Not exactly_

_why, Obie… what big teeth you’ve grown_

_a hand adorned with massive claws grips his face, forces him to look and wide, terrified eyes peer warily into those of insanity and greed. This isn’t the Obie he knows. This is a demon wearing his skin… has to be_

_it strokes his arc reactor with one hooked claw, and his breath hitches into nothing more than a grunt as he tries desperately to shout, to tell it to **get the** **fuck away from his heart**_

_but it pays no heed, and claws plunge into him regardless, and it’s **grinning** as though it’s finally acquired a long-desired prize, too enthralled by the heavenly blue glow to notice his agonized wheezing _

_and then it extracts it, pulls it out with a sucking ‘pop’ and appraises it, shows it to him as he attempts to breathe through an approaching panic attack, because he’s looking at his damn **heart** , and it’s in the hands of an abomination. Or worse, the gnarled remnants of an old friend  _

_tears collect in his eyes and he swallows hard around vomit_

_please…_

_his silent plea is ignored. The arc reactor is yanked from his body like a weed from soil, roots and all dangling obscenely off the underside and the gasp he releases is filled with anguish and horror and pain, so much pain. It’s probably his hyperactive imagination, but he swears he can feel the shrapnel shifting within its unwelcome home, sharp and cold_

_His breathing quickens as his heart begins an irregular rhythm and his jaw tightens ominously, left arm twinges and cramps spastically. He chokes down a sob_

_he’ll die here, like an old man_

_the monster turns to leave, clutching its prize, and all he can do is watch helplessly as his very heart, **his** **fucking heart** is taken from him, and no, please come back, that’s his heart!  _

It’s his thrashing and the consequential agony such movement brings which wakes Tony this time. The intensity of it renders him at an immediate, frozen standstill on his back, mouth open and eyes wide with shock at exactly _how_ much pain he’s in. Each breath comes in a tiny gasp as he discovers that expanding his lungs to their full capacity is just unbearable, and he shakes violently with persistent fever and a certain disabling fear brought on by his most recent nightmare.

But he’s beginning to question whether they’re nightmares or not, because they seem so, so real, and he sees everything in such vividly disturbing definition, that for all he knew, they could be full blown hallucinations. “So what’s it gonna be, J?” he nearly whispers. Talking is akin to being drawn and quartered, shifting the arc reactor in just the right way so as to bring tears to his eyes. “Am I gonna finally experience spontaneous combustion like I’ve always dreamed?”

“Your fever has stabilized at 103.8, Sir.” JARVIS replies. Hearing the voice of his A.I. is almost like a painkiller for Tony and he allows a small, tentative smile to smooth out the pain-induced canyons on his face. “I’ll remind you, there is excess ibuprofen lysine in the garage. I suggest you administer a dose to actually begin reducing the fever. Although it has evened out, it is still fairly high.”

“Yeah…” He relents quietly, and he can almost hear JARVIS’ sigh of relief. Slowly, painfully, he props himself up on his elbows with a groan, and locates his feet tangled in the sheet, twisted so tightly it’s almost like a soaked rope has been wound around his ankles. The comforter is nowhere to be found. “I guess I could- ah!” He gasps, stops and clenches his eyes shut as just a tiny attempt to extract his captive feet shoots fire along his ribcage. Ever the stubborn Stark he is, he persists. “Guess I could… make a little trip to the shop.” He pants as he manages to remove one foot, then two.

“Relax, sir.” JARVIS says, and Tony furrows a sweaty brow questioningly at the ceiling, but he has very little time to be confused, because moments later, his elevator is dinging open and a large robotic arm holding a tray rolls toward him. Tony releases a disbelieving little chuckle and instantly regrets doing so, but DUM-E’s happy whir is enough to bring him around fairly quickly.

DUM-E stops with his claw mere inches from the bed, just close enough for Tony to reach the items on the tray, and Tony smiles appreciatively at him. What a wonderful little family he has. “You guys take good care of me.” He says, reaching up with a harsh grimace to pat DUM-E’s claw before weak, quivering fingers curl around the syringe containing the intravenously administered ibuprofen. He’s happy to note the existence of a glass of cold water there as well, only the best thing he’s seen almost _ever_.

He’s probably more dehydrated than he’s ever been, possibly even more so than the moments directly following his rescue from the desert of Afghanistan. As he ties the a rubber strip around his bicep, having some difficulty using a combination of his right hand and his teeth to do so, he notices just how much sweat he’s produced, and promptly finds himself disgusted. Black hair matted and sticking to his scalp like it’s glued there, clothes feel tight as spandex, and his damn bed is like a swamp.

Gross. Tony pops the cap of the syringe and inserts the needle into a vein located in his inner elbow with a wince. Doing so while lying down and attempting to not jostle the torture device in his sternum is quite the task but he emerges successful, cool liquid overtaking his veins like ice water. Slowly his headache fades, and he closes his eyes, enjoying the sudden absence of knives behind them.

The sun burnt feeling all over his body is diminishing until he’s shivering in a healthy way, with actual cold and not sickness. He wishes he knew where that damn comforter went to, but finds himself too exhausted and in too much pain to even consider sitting up let alone _getting_ up to look for it, so he decides to be comfortable, or relatively so, right where he’s at, on his back, soaked in sweat, not moving an inch.

Until he feels soft fabric sliding up his body, and when he looks, he sees DUM-E pulling the previously lost comforter carefully over him with small purrs of affection.


	6. Chapter 6

It's 15:23 exactly and Steve is slicing angry gray lines mindlessly into a piece of sketch paper, when the call comes. On the other end of the phone issued to him by SHIELD, Fury is in a state of subdued panic. Apparently, there's an unidentified gaseous vapor crawling its way through HQ 35 in southern Arizona, and Tony and Bruce's particular skill sets are currently in demand. There is thought to be six people still trapped inside, their statuses unknown.

But there's one glaring problem with such a specific request; Tony has yet to emerge from his workshop, where JARVIS insists he's still busy doing stuff and things. Excuses have become even more obscure and Steve's just about had it up to the moon with whatever Tony's trying to accomplish by staying hidden. Missing a call to assemble will be the absolute last straw.

"JARVIS, get Banner on the phone." He says as he pulls his blue kevlar top on hurriedly, and instantly regrets sounding so demanding. "Please."

JARVIS doesn't reply but seconds later, as Steve rushes around to piece together the remainder of his uniform, Bruce's voice cuts through his focused determination. "Yeah, I got it." He says, sounding breathless, possibly in the process of getting ready himself. "You, Tony and myself, correct?"

"Yeah, and Barton and Romanoff as escort." Steve nearly growls, slipping a foot into a heavy combat boot. "That's gonna be an issue, though. You haven't seen Stark, have you?"

"No." Bruce admits, and he sounds just about as exasperated as Steve feels. "Meet you down by the shop?"

"Exactly what I was thinking." Steve says, pulling his other boot on and sprinting to the door, grabbing his shield on the way out. The line is cut, both parties aware that all that needed to be said was indeed, said.

The stairs are faster than waiting for the elevator to make the climb all the way up to Steve's floor, and he jumps entire sets of them, landing with tiny grunts on the platforms below, until he reaches the level containing Tony's workshop. He emerges to find Bruce already standing outside the blackened glass, punching codes into the access panel furiously, cursing quietly as each code is rejected. Steve skips all notion of formalities and comes up behind him, one clenched fist landing hard three times on the door. The glass is nearly impenetrable by design, but the pure righteous anger his raps contain still manage to leave it quivering in its frame.

"Captain Rogers, you are compromising the integrity of a secure perimeter." JARVIS says, and the smooth voice sounds suddenly more robotic than Steve's ever heard it. "Continuing to do so will give me authorization to deploy defensive capabilities."

Steve ignores the warning, blinded and deafened by passionate outrage. "Stark, I know you're in there!" He shouts futilely, because he knows the shop is sound-proof, and doing so is simply to appease his own appetite for a display of his indignation. An outlet. He bangs on the glass three more times, face twisting with his snarl. "There's no time for this stupid game, people are getting hurt!"

"This is your final warning, Captain." Now, JARVIS sounds vengeful as two slender, black cylinders slide out of the ceiling on either side of the frame, the unmistakable muzzles of very advanced weaponry pointing directly at him. "Cease all aggressive actions now or face non-lethal incapacitation."

"Steve, c'mon." Bruce says quietly behind him, and he feels a hand land softly on his shoulder, a staying act of reason. For a man with rage issues, Bruce certainly knows how to diffuse potentially explosive situations. "Maybe he's on his way already."

Gripping the strap of his Shield in a tight fist, Steve shakes his head and looks to the camera above the door. "JARVIS," he says, voice too level to seem natural as he strains to keep himself from screaming at the A.I. "if Stark is still in the building, let him know that absence from this assembly will result in suspension."

Having found a slight bit of satisfaction with his words, Steve turns and continues on to the elevator, vaguely aware of Bruce trailing closely behind. The ascent to the helicopter pad on the roof is quiet, Steve radiating agitation and Bruce seemingly trying to rein in his own, the only sign of his struggle being fist clenching and unclenching beside him in a steady rhythm. It must be hard, Steve thinks as he glances over at him, needing to keep such a firm lid on the boiling concoction beneath that placid outer shell. He doesn't envy Bruce, but he holds high regard to the man's nearly unshakable resolve.

They exit the elevator to find Natasha and Clint waiting impatiently inside the cockpit of a quinjet, and run over to clamber aboard and sit on the bench within.

"Where's Stark?" Natasha asks as she flips various switches and glances over her shoulder at Steve in question.

Steve clenches his jaw. "No-show." He replies hotly, and Natasha shoots him an unabashed look of shock, before regaining composure with lightning speed and turning to initiate take off without further inquiry.

After all, they have a mission to conduct.


	7. Chapter 7

  
Intense pain is resurfacing from its drug-dampened state and Tony's cursing the fact that ibuprofin can only be taken every eight hours, a rule he plans to adhere to religiously. He's positive his liver is already a mess, wrecked from decades of heavy alcohol consumption, and further abuse could prove devastating to his ultimate goal of staying alive. If he is going to systematically beat the crap out of his organs with foreign substances, he's going to make sure there's at least a party happening to justify it. 

Tony despises these days. Lying on his right side now, he's glowering out the window in a state of determined disconnection, because remaining on  _this_  plane of miserable existence for much longer will break him in half, and the crack will start right beneath the torturous arc reactor. He has notions of contacting Bruce for some actual goddamn pain meds, but quickly dismisses the thought, because he's set on learning to deal with this. It happens often enough that allowing himself to be coddled would be immensely counter-productive, and expecting narcotics every time will turn him soft.  

At least his fever has diminished to a manageable level, and he's much more comfortable with the blanket pulled up around him, no longer sweating so heavily underneath it. And thank...  _whatever_ , the hallucinations have ceased for the time being. But good lord, he longed for a shower. And clean sheets. And a normal freaking heart not burdened with the endeavor of operating around a cluster of vicious, sharpened metal.

If Tony was one of those people who allowed themselves to tread in the thick, black waters of perpetual self-pity, he would have drowned in it long ago. 

"Talk to me, J." He says quietly as his stubborn detachment begins to de-solidify with the corrosive influence of returning agony. He's in need of an outside distraction now, because the internal one he's concocted is eroding quickly. "Anything crazy happening that I should know about?" 

There's a long pause, and Tony looks up after a minute, suspicious as he waits for an answer. JARVIS is a machine. He doesn't pause, he  _calculates_ , and before he calculates he lets Tony know he will  _be_  calculating, so such a prolonged silence is concerning to say the least. It does provide an adequate distraction, though, as all consideration for his pain is replaced with curiosity. "JARVIS?" He inquires sternly.

"My apologies, sir." JARVIS replies, and Tony releases a thankful breath. He's not sure what exactly he was thinking had happened, but it had been enough to get his pulse going. "I was deciding whether lying to you would prove beneficial to your recovery, however protocol overrode any alternate conclusion I could possibly provide." 

JARVIS sounds regretful. Tony is beyond shocked and confused, eyebrows raised and mouth open as it tries to get out words it's obviously forgotten how to formulate. JARVIS never lies to him.  Regardless of the mitigation protocols in place for such an instance, JARVIS wouldn't  _ever_  lie to him. "Alright..." He says slowly, expression wary as he studies the camera above him, which for all intents and purposes contains JARVIS' 'eyes'. "Spill."

"There's been a call to assemble, sir." 

Tony sits up immediately. Pain shoots through him as his arc reactor shifts viciously, and he cries out, eyes snapping tightly shut to prevent sudden, unbidden tears from spilling. "Why... in the actual  _fuck_... would you wait to tell me that?!" He gasps as loudly as possible, one hand clutching the arc reactor in a fruitless attempt to keep it immobile as the other throws the comforter off. 

"Sir, it seemed illogical at the time to worry you with such information when you are clearly in no condition to provide aid-"  

"Who says I'm in no condition?" He shouts angrily, planting feet on the floor with a low groan. "Who the hell asked you, JARVIS?" Standing is a miserable chore, and his legs shake as he rises, weakened by fever and hours of sweating and writhing. His chest feels like he's being stabbed.

"I'll remind you, sir, the Mark Seven is still undergoing repairs, leaving only one viable suit in the vicinity." JARVIS insists, sounding desperate.

"The seven can still go 'vroom', right?" Tony spits as he takes one tentative step forward, followed by a second, and a third. Finding his balance quickly, he hurries to a drawer and pulls out fresh clothes. Dressing himself will surly be agonizing. 

"Yes, however-"

"Then it's gonna go 'vroom'. Get it ready." He growls in frustration at the damn near crippling pain just pulling his jeans up brings him. 

"Sir, this mission requires use of a controlled internal ecosystem, specifically the air filtration system. The Mark Seven sustained heavy damage to its filtration system during your last outing."

"Whatever, I'll take my brief on the way there. So, what's the other option?" He snaps this question absently as he pulls on a shirt and shoves bare feet into tennis shoes. Of course he knows where all his various suits are. And he knows exactly which other one is there at the tower. What a perfect opportunity for his migraine to come back and demand revenge for the drugs he'd suppressed it with. 

"The Mark Five, sir." JARVIS supplies quietly, ominously. 

He stops for a moment, closes his eyes and breathes a deep sigh as nerves bunch up in his gut like a ball of snakes. Of course it's the Five, why would it be anything _other_ than the Five? He's got two goddamn suits sporting the ability to  _not_  have to plug directly into his arc reactor and both are despairingly damaged. Shit, one of them isn't even in the same state. All of a sudden, he remembers bitterly what he had initially planned to do that day. 

But he's Tony Stark. He drives on, regardless of personal comfort. "Those upgrades look promising for sustained flight?" he asks, swallowing the wriggling mass of anxiety in his throat and opening his eyes before marching resolutely forward, back straight and chest out despite the unbearable pain the posture causes. 

"Indeed, sir." JARVIS confirms. "The suits current level of sustainable flight power should prove sufficient for your travel to Tucson."

"Arizona, huh?" He locates the compact, sleek suitcase containing the Mark Five sitting on a shelf in the safe near his balcony, and runs a hand lightly over it. He's prepared to do whatever it takes to help his team. "Never cared much for the desert." He whispers. 

Pulling the suit to the floor with a grunt, Tony activates it with a press of his foot, and gazes down at the deceptively inviting gauntlets with dread. He's sweating heavily again. Oh, this is gonna suck.

Snarling through the pain, Tony bends down, plunges his hands into the gauntlets, lifts the suit to his chest, and feels the upgraded unit fit snuggly into his newer chest piece- 

And screams raggedly as the lucid world dissolves around him, shatters and settles near his feet like so many broken mirrors, and he sees nothing but bright, blue light. 


	8. Chapter 8

Inside the facility, it’s like a warzone.

As soon as Steve exits the decontamination chamber, the gas enshrouds him like coils of constantine wire, and his breath hitches when his first inhale is met with painful, burning resistance. His eyes stream, and he shuts them quickly as he suppresses a cough. For the first time in his life, he’s grateful they included the gas chamber in basic training. This is far more intense than a little CS, of course, but he appreciates the additional experience all the same.

When Steve’s able to force his eyes open with herculean effort, because he knows they will sting and weep, he’s struck by what he finds through the blur of involuntary tears. The reception area immediately beyond the entry point is dark, lit only by the steady pulse of flashing, red emergency lights. Alarms blare in a deafening rhythm, low and ominous, and the burning vapor is a visible presence all around him, creating a thick, hazy aura.

God, why him?

Their initial plan of action was to send in the Hulk, but with the chemical make-up of the crawling vapor being largely unknown, this notion became an impossibility. Bruce was adamant that the Hulk’s reaction to the extreme environment would be unpredictable. Hulk adapts physically to sustain himself when exposed to less than desirable dangers by utilizing untapped rage, therefore creating even more dangerous circumstances than what they already face. Protective equipment already proved a failure against this substance, and with Thor having left for Asgard literally minutes before the call, Stark’s suit would have been invaluable in their rescue effort.

So Steve’s reaction was expected and barely even registered on a thoughtful level. He ignored Fury’s insistent protests and charged in with little reservations because the serum is the best thing they have, and he’d be damned if he lets innocent people die when he can do something to prevent it.

And now, looking around himself with swiftly growing anxiety, exposed flesh seemingly melting and lungs turning to ash in his chest, Steve wishes he had a damn Iron Man suit of his own.

The facility is deceptively large, with most of the architecture existing underground, and little is known about the locations of the six missing personnel trapped within. There’s three hallways in front of him that disappear into suffocating, uninviting darkness, and he has not a clue which one to take, so he goes off a hunch, taking the one to his right and sprinting into what can only be hell on Earth.

Steve’s quick, tactical mind memorizes his steps, and soon he reaches a flight of stairs, descending quickly into the gasping pit below. His heart is racing oddly just from that relatively tiny amount of physical activity, and Steve realizes then that he needs to evacuate the victims as soon as possible, because if Steve Rogers is being affected this badly by whatever this is, he’ll be lucky to find living people in this nightmare.

And he can’t stop thinking angrily about how much easier this could have been had Stark shown up with his scanners. He coughs raggedly and eventually finds that he’s unable to stop.

Turning left into another hallway at the bottom of the stairwell, he’s greeted with a series of doors which lead into what look like individual quarters. Gasping and coughing into his elbow, unable to draw in a full breath, Steve begins kicking in the doors, moving inside each room to make entirely sure that no one’s there. And when he sweeps around the bed of the fifth one and spots a woman lying on her side, his shock causes him to hesitate in a momentary, wide-eyed, debilitating instance of wasted seconds.  

No photographic documentation exists of the effects of the black plague, which nearly decimated the population of Europe, but if Steve should take a bet, he’d bet the physical aspects of it closely resembled this. Lesions cover most areas of exposed skin, surrounded by a deep, penetrating black, and the way her eyes are still open, staring lifelessly into nothing, leaves Steve’s blood running icy through his veins. He’d have nightmares about this.

Shaking himself from his stupor, Steve bends down to feel for a pulse at her carotid, and after a moment, he finds it, weak but steady. God, it’s a miracle.

He hefts the woman up onto his shoulder, careful to avoid brushing against the wounds, and stops for a moment of split second decision making. He has two options. He could either run and grab the other five victims, wasting more time and possibly killing them all, or he could evacuate this woman immediately and save at least one of them, maybe. Hopefully.     

_Damn you, Tony._

Steve leaves the way he came, bounding through hallways, and cycling over his memorized steps as he runs. All the while, he coughs and hacks and gags. When he exits the building, the dry desert heat is, ironically enough, akin to running into a soothing, misty cloud because the alternative inside is just so awful. Nose running and face burning, he sprints to the crowd of evacuated employees and deposits the woman with a medical team. Clint and Natasha are there and they eye him worriedly. Fury yells something, but Steve’s hearing has fallen offline. Not that he would listen anyway.

He turns and runs back in. Because who’s going to stop him? Really?

Assuming that SHIELD detected the gas relatively quickly and cordoned off the affected area nearly as fast, containing it at its initial origin, Steve returns to the living area. He finds another person five doors down, a man who looks like he’d been coming out of the bathroom when it hit, and Steve grabs him, flings him over his shoulder, and repeats his actions from before.

After relocating the man outside, Steve stumbles and vomits next to the medical vehicle. Fury doesn’t say a word. He runs back in without a second glance.

The third person is further beyond the individual rooms, collapsed inside a sort of large common area, with a TV and a couch and kitchenette, and Steve is so short of breath he can barely stand by the time he reaches it. With squinted, watering eyes, he shuffles along the wall, holding himself upright against it, and as he nears the unconscious man and steps away to grab him, his legs buckle and he falls to the ground. “Dammit…” He rasps, looking toward the man. Deadened eyes stare back at him. Steve turns his face away with a guilty wince.

There’s gas seeping into his open, sweating pores, a million little needles stabbing his throbbing face. He’s beyond coughing now, reduced to tiny, quick, gravelly breaths, and he feels his strength draining from him, swirling away like water from a bathtub. His body is burning with effort and pain. Muscles spasm with the beginnings of nerve damage, an electric shock through each ending.

And, growling furiously, Steve grits his teeth and high crawls through it all anyway, focusing all his efforts on the man’s outstretched hand, a limb unconsciously reaching for anyone willing to brave this to save him.  

But the man’s got to be thirteen feet away from Steve, and the small space between them is like a howling chasm.

Steve releases a desperate cry of frustration. C’mon, left knee up, left elbow up, push with foot, pull with elbow; right knee up, right elbow up, push with foot, pull with elbow. Dammit, somehow this was so much easier back when he was an eighty pound asthmatic.

Arms quiver beneath his weight, legs shake as they weakly push him forward, and there’s something cynical in his mind, telling him to just give up and lie down, to stop torturing himself for the sake of a lost cause… to just accept that he’ll die here. That damn near a century of cheating death will finally catch up with him. Perhaps he’s been given too many chances already. Shadows glaze over paling blue eyes.

His elbow slips, but he catches it quickly with a snarl. And then the nerves in his legs bunch up like crumpled pieces of paper and he’s unable to go any further. He rests his forehead on the cool ground beneath him. Takes in as deep a breath as he can muster, and weathers the cough it forces from his heaving chest

Well… at least he’ll die warm this time.

He sees blinding blue light to his left, and turns his head slowly towards it, eyes squinted against its intensity. It’s warm and comforting. And if Steve could use his legs, he’d gladly get up and walk to it.  Instead, he lies there and allows it to come to him, bathing him in its otherworldly serenity and the strangest thought suddenly strikes him, a thought he would never consider appropriate immediately before an angel takes you;

‘ _I wish I would have stopped being so angry, if just for a moment, to check and see if Tony was okay.’_

And isn’t that just like Steve Rogers? Considering others as he himself kisses death.

If Steve is to ever escape this by some miracle, he’ll definitely strangle their resident eccentric genius with his own shoelaces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god, please don’t kill me! Next chapter will be up soon as humanly possible. 
> 
> I struggled with this one for a while, and even had the rest of the story written out, but it just didn’t feel right because I am my own fucking worst critic, I swear. Not to mention how overwhelmed I am with the response to this story! It’s almost nerve wracking how many people expect so much out of this and suddenly I have this crazy self-created standard I must uphold. 
> 
> Anyway, don’t fall off the edge of that cliff hanger, please! I truly do love you guys. Thank you for all the support!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> harrowing description of torture ahead, please tread with caution

_he’s being dragged into hell again, growling and snarling_

_the demons wear cloth around their faces for this task, this task of hurting him. he finds it stupid; why would they care about concealing their faces? their pointed, red ears poke beneath the fabric, betray their identities anyway. how fucking silly. He knows they’re all monsters, they don’t have to hide_

_he struggles against them, endures the slaps and kicks, the swift beatings, their attempts to control him, their silly goddamn attempts to control him, when he knows what’s coming at the end of the hallway is **so much worse**_

_he’s about to go silly himself, if he’s not careful, his grasp on reality as dubious as his ability to weather this_

_he shouts uselessly_

_Hell consists of three thick, cave walls, a metal door, a curious coppery stench, a copious basin of water with miserable ice cubes bobbing in it, innocent little things that once cooled numbing drinks for him. He becomes an animal for a moment, blind with savage flight instinct. He used to wear Gucci_

_what he wouldn’t do for a goddamn drink, hard liquor, wine, the worst beer ever made, the best scotch money can buy_

_anything but water_

_have the pool fucking ripped out, when he gets back_

_they beat him into a state of compliance_

_his hands are bound behind him, he’s kneeling, his chest, adorned with its new ornament, heaves, his face burns. Demons squeal in tongues all around him. The torturous souvenir, the little implant he’s acquired from this rotten vacation, is a constant, raw, **throbbing** reminder of his crushing vulnerability and helplessness. they bare their fangs, cackle like hyenas, their grips are burning him, along his arms and in his hair. they’ve managed to get him this far_

_he’s shaking his head because he can’t believe this is happening to him_

_this is Hell, he’s been judged by God already, and this is Hell. He never even believed in that shit, yet this feels so intensely biblical_

_“Jericho!” they screech “Jericho, Jericho!”_

_fucking Jericho. The cause of all this. those who live by the sword…_

_“Fuck you.”_

_all he can do his gasp, eye the water with terror, take in air that will soon be the most treasured thing on the planet to him_

_they plunge him in. this is worth it. This is what he deserves. he can’t let more people die because of him, he just can’t. that young man had thrown up a peace sign…_

_he will use it. If he gets out of here, he will use that stupid peace sign whenever possible. never forget it. that kid died because of him, because the demons wanted **him** , lost his life protecting him, and for what?_

**_“stay here!”_ **

_was his name ‘Jimmy’?_

_the first time he’s dunked is never too bad, always expected, chills him, but he’s not vomiting pure fiery acid yet_

_staying still behooves him, saves his energy, he’s been doing this for days_

_hasn’t he?_

_He still twitches_

_They pull him up, and he appreciates the break, gasps graciously, but knows that it’s not mercy, merely prolongs this until he inevitably blacks out. too soon, he’s thrown back under_

_Same song and dance, the song being his choked screams, gags and symphonic retching, the dance being his twisting struggle to writhe out of their painful grasps_

_His terrible privilege bites him as water touches it, an ungrateful animal in a temporary home. Pepper calls his name, wants him on a plane that was supposed to depart hours before_

_she would want him to fight. this nightmare in his chest needs to be reined in, first off_

_calculations assault him-_

_“Jericho!” they scream at him_

**_“Tony!” Pepper screams louder_ **

_Pepper, Home, an enormous source of renewable energy… a car battery hangs off him, his literal ball and chain, dammit, that won’t do_

_He cries out as they yank his hair, and god it’s too much, there’s too much going on, too many people screaming at him, too many hands on him, **everywhere**. they were right. he won’t last_

_-maybe a way to focus the energy into a smaller housing unit-_

_he’s back in the water, thrashing, instinct claiming him as dreadful acid leaks into his nose, down his throat, tiny razors that slice up his lungs, leaves them crackling for hours after. the magnet sends lightning through him_

_that has to go, foremost_

_-palladium as a binder-_

_He’s pulled up, retching, vomits clear water all over himself, the magnet shocks him ruthlessly. Fire and ice_

_-Have the doctor put it right in my chest-_

_he’s thrown back in. the fear will certainly swallow him whole, and its mouth is the sucking shadow of the water_

_-can get it from the mark seven Nova series missiles-_

_up again, a horrible roller coaster_

_“Jericho!” then frenzied gibberish_

_he’s choking, drowning, and that pain and terror is unlike anything else “- **hurp** \- oh, f-fuck, please, - **hurg** \- stop-“ _

_Not the answer they accept here. Visa, not Discover, sorry, Mr. Stark_

**_Sir…_ **

_if only he was buying a silk shirt, instead of his own salvation, paying for it with money, instead of innocent lives. He’d want to speak to the manager, this is ridiculous_

_-get supplies. Just tell them all the supplies, they don’t have to know you’re not doing it-_

**_Sir!_ **

_“Jericho!”_

_“Okay!” he’s screaming at them as the water approaches, lungs drawing in sizzling fire in place of air, incapable of enduring another minute of it “I’ll do it! Okay? Fuck, I’ll build the Jericho!”_

“Sir!”

Tony wakes with a shout, and there’s barely a moment to consider himself, before blinding pain becomes his entire world once more. In his dreams, in his reality, he can’t escape it. It’s a permanent feature of being Tony Stark now.

It’s been so long since he’s had a nightmare about… _that_ … the torture. Doesn’t even appreciate naming it for what it is. His face is wet. A sob slips out, Images of it batter him. There’s no time to dwell on it. He’s sure it will come later anyway.

Fire radiates through him, a quaking pulse in which his arc reactor is the epicenter, a dysfunctional button in an elevator, and someone is pressing it into him over and over, expecting him to work, work, work, dammit. So much is always expected of him.

“Oh, fuck,” Tony moans, and he can’t even move, encased within the newly upgraded Five, stuck in the flight position on his way to Tucson. There’s wetness on his face. The agony of the water in his chest had been so real, and now he recognizes why. All the progress he made back at the Tower dissolves and evaporates into thin air. Their argument continues. The arc reactor is an ungrateful parasitic bitch, unware that its measly existence depends on Tony, is more than willing to torment him despite this fact.

“J, sit-rep,” he grunts.

“Sir, I attempted to wake you as soon as I received the message,” JARVIS begins, “Captain Rogers has entered the facility a third time and hasn’t returned.”

“Dammit!” Tony curses furiously. “You are _so_ on my shit-list, JARVIS.”

“I know, sir. My apologies.” JARVIS sounds distraught. Tony registers it, but doesn’t have time to entertain anything outside the current, horrific situation. That gas is obscenely poisonous, and, if the readings provided to him by Fury are to be trusted, it was a miracle anyone lived through it at all. If Rogers collapsed in there… “Five minutes until arrival.”

“More thrust, goddammit, stop holding back,” he hisses, gasps when the increased force startles him with terrifying pain, whimpers when the winds vibrate the casing against the swollen flesh around it. “Stick me, J. I’m gonna need it.” He’d wanted to ride this out without painkillers, but duty calls. A tiny needle down by his ankle begins deploying 20 milligrams of morphine into him slowly. His poor liver. He’s fortunate the organ doesn’t pack its bags and leave his ass, finally sick of all the abuse.

Five minutes. He can make it three. “Give me visuals.” The morphine is kicking in, working hand-in-hand with pure adrenaline to completely numb his pain. His vision blurs as he tediously scans images of the current situation outside the building, which he is sure has become its own verifiable little slice of Hell inside, by now. Emergency vehicles outnumber normal ones in the parking lot, and all the little dots representing people are crowding well away from the building. His path is clear.

Within earshot, people are beginning to twirl around, look for him, dumb faces turned to the sky, with flat hands sheltering their eyes from the desert sun. God, he hates the fucking desert. The morphine is failing him, he’s in pain again, the suit rattling his entire chest cavity. The g-forces are too much. This landing will suck spectacularly.

“Stark!” Fury shouts in his comms, but Tony has one goal, and speaking is just one of those things that irritates the arc reactor so, so much. He mutes him. Mutes them all. He must concentrate, stay conscious long enough to get to Rogers. Energy leaks from him as he touches down with a stumble and a grunt, seeps from the hole in his chest, allows room for pain in its stead. There’s no time.

Gasping, he enters the facility, wastes not a second musing over its exultantly inhospitable interior.

“Scan, J,” he whispers, holding his chest, absolutely dripping with sweat inside the armor. Disgusting.

“One life form detected,” JARVIS says quietly, and Tony’s HUD lights up a path for him, down a flight of stairs, a very long hallway, and inside a large room. It’s Rogers, it has to be, the bulky form is familiar.

“Get me there,” Tony rasps, leaning against a desk after exiting the decontamination area. “Now!”

“I cannot, sir, the gas is highly combustible,” JARVIS says mournfully, and Tony spits a nasty curse, “I wouldn’t suggest making a single spark.”

“Hoofin’ it, then,” he growls.

Walking as Iron Man is always a chore. Walking as Iron Man with a sore reactor feels like he’s being impaled. Like in the old days, when they used to execute men by spearing them with a pike, and driving it into the ground so they can slip slowly down it, their screams, acting as very persuasive examples for the other common folk… it feels like that.

By the time he gets to the room containing Rogers, he’s ready to collapse, throwing himself heavily into the doorframe. Steve is there, right in front of him, regarding him with wide, blood-red eyes and a burnt face beneath his cowl. He’s confused, delirious, perhaps, Tony can see it. A dead man lays a few feet from him, a thing there to foreshadow this, an example. “Sorry… sorry I’m late, Cap,” Tony pants.

“Sir, he’s not going to make it,” JARVIS murmurs in his ear.

“Stark?” Steve says with a voice that sounds like it’s been raked across hot coals, scrunching his face, and Tony wishes he would start calling him ‘Tony’. Just Tony. Sometimes, he picks up the distinct impression that almost sacrificing himself for New York wasn’t enough to gain Rogers’ respect, feels like such an outsider around him. Calling Tony by his damn first name would indicate at least a shred of comradery, right?

His knees fail him. The Five crumples to the ground with a shriek of straining metal.

“Tony!” Steve gasps, worry all over his face.

There it is. Tony smiles. The stupid, righteous idiot is dying, and he’s worried about Tony. Typical.  

He can’t carry Steve out of here like he’d planned, though nothing ever really goe _s perfectly_ according to plan, does it? Tony crawls to him, on his hands and fucking knees. No one else is going to die because of him. “Take care of him, JARVIS.”

Rogers’ cowl is in the way. Steve watches him with devastated blue eyes, as Tony unclasps his chinstrap, and removes it, tossing it aside. “Wha-what are you d-doing?” Cap breathes at him.

“Laying on the wire,” Tony says, and removes his helmet, placing it on a protesting, helpless Steve Rogers. Almost immediately, upon attempting his first heaving breath, Tony’s assailed by horrific recollections of torture and abuse, because air doesn’t come. Instead, he inhales razors, and the arc reactor sends lighting through him, and frenzied voices shriek in gibberish at him. The pain is so intense, it tears him right out of reality.

_“Jericho,” they scream_

_“Jericho, Jericho.”_

_demons with claws and missing teeth hold him down too long this time_

_-this is impossible-_

_he’s already so tired, he stops struggling_

_-I can’t do this-_

_darkness inks into his vision from all sides, he’s got to breathe, it’s either that or die_

_-would need a damn suit of armor to get out of here…-_

_water floods his slack mouth and nose_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the, uh... four years? Yeeesh, four years.... my bad. Sorry guys. I'm back though. Been writing a few other things to get myself back into it, and thought I'd finally take a whack at this. Tell me what you think. 
> 
> Oh, and thanks to all the people who left kind, encouraging (sometimes forceful) words for me. Even after four years people are telling me what huge fans they are of this, and I just can't ignore you guys any longer.
> 
> Happy Tuesday!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I'm baffled by how nice you guys are, leaving me all those great comments, and it broke 800 kudos, which is sweet, so thank you all, seriously. If i missed replying to you, it's not because I hate you, or whatever, I actually love you tons, it's just, there's so many, and I only have so much time. It doesn't mean I don't treasure them! So, here's another chapter as a thank you. Enjoy.

_No._

“Tony… don’t…” Steve objects with gravelly whispers, barely lucid, but there enough to realize what Tony is doing is certain suicide. The helmet adapts to Steve, tightens around his face with a shrill whir, and in no time, he’s heaving enormous breaths of beautiful, beautiful clean air, an intricate display lighting up before him. So, this is what Tony sees. Not bad.

And Tony is beside him, choking on a substance that Steve intimately understands is comparable to hellfire.

“Hello Captain Rogers,” JARVIS greets him mournfully. “The helmet is in power save mode, and certain features are disabled, including communications. I am sorry.”

“Get- get it-“ it’s so difficult to speak. Steve can’t physically resist whatsoever, “JARVIS, s-s-stop… dammit... save _him._ ”

Tony is writhing right next to him, and Steve can barely lift a single finger, his nerves shredded by the vicious gas. And why is Tony so weak? When he removed his helmet, Steve immediately noticed, even as sick and delirious as he is, the lines of stress and tension that cut deep canyons across a typically flawless complexion, how Tony looked like he could have just stepped out of the shower seconds before, the way he was dripping. Like he had been suffering greatly before the gas even became a factor. And clearly, the armors filtration system is functioning perfectly.

“Tony…” Steve heaves, reaches for Tony, and it’s _working,_ his blessedly fast metabolism beginning the healing process almost immediately after his cells received oxygen. Moving his arm is like pushing it into a wood chipper, though, all his nerves igniting with an extreme prickling numbness, and Steve cries out, but it’s worth it, dammit. It’s worth touching and comforting this man who would give his life for anyone. And Steve forgets that sometimes, how selfless Tony is. He finds Tony’s face, with a choked sob. “C’mon Sh-Shell-head… can’t die… Invincible… sarcastic ass.” He’s crying now, while he touches Tony’s cheek. Sometimes even Steve is fooled by the act Tony puts on to protect himself.

His legs are beginning to cooperate. Yanking weakly at the helmet with his free hand does nothing. “My apologies, Captain, but this protocol cannot be overwritten until you are clear of danger.” JARVIS supplies somberly. So Steve wipes sweat-soaked locks from Tony’s forehead instead.

 _“You ever try shwarma? I don’t know what it is, but I want to try it.”_ Steve remembers it, clear as day, hopes the outcome to this will be similar. Will treat Tony to shwarma himself if they both make it out of here.

“No, please… Tony… I owe you shwarma.”

Tony is twisting, taking in heaving, choked, painful breaths, cracking the tile beneath him, creating an indent with the remaining armor he’s got on, _carving_ one out of the floor with the sharp edge of his agony. Eyes, usually so alight with laughter and enlightenment, are wide, dull with terror, far away somewhere, entertaining nothing but his pain. Steve looks on helplessly, his world zooming in on Tony’s face, whooshing loudly all around him until there’s nothing _but_ Tony’s face. He looks on, shaken by it. _God, no, don’t die. Please._ He’s doomed to lay there and watch Tony die.

_“Genius, Billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.”_

_No, no, he’s worth so much more than all those things._

“Tony… I’m getting… better, Tony, I’m gonna… gonna get us out of here… hang, hang in there, please,” Steve gasps, stroking the man’s suffering face, trying to stay up on his elbows and off his chest so breathing might be a tad easier for him. Exhaustion is settling deep into Steve’s bones… A startling red line has appeared on Iron Man’s HUD to trace Tony’s retching, moaning form, to warn Steve that his time is tremendously limited. Alarms blare at him, demand action from him. Is this what Tony sees when someone is hurt? It’s quite dramatic.

Tony grabs Steve’s arm. Whether consciously, or not, it hurts like hell beneath Iron Man’s unrelenting grip, and Steve weathers it. This is horrible. This is like watching Bucky fall all over again.

_“Give me a call if you need anything, Cap.” His handshake, surprisingly firm, warm. Giving Bruce a safe home was extremely kind._

_C’mon, legs._ They’re cramping spastically, tormenting him. “Hang in there, Tony,” Steve says, and his voice is returning to normal, the swiftness of his healing ability, simply not fair. He wishes he could project it onto his teammate: Tony Stark, the man to _always_ lay down on the wire, lets _everyone_ crawl over him. Steve cringes at his own words, the original ones. Those words were cruel, those were… ignorant and foolish and shaped like stones. They were meant as little wrecking balls, to erode at Tony’s arrogance and carelessness, or what Steve perceived as such. Later, he would learn that Bruce actually appreciated Tony’s complete lack of fear of him, had never met anyone like that before, someone willing, not to look _past_ the monster, but to embrace it.

Tony cries out with a frantic breath he must have saved up. His eyes stream. The sheer intensity of his suffering rattles Steve to his core. Klaxons wail around him, a grieving cry, and the brown haze of the gas is a persistent, suffocating presence, like a poltergeist in an old house.

After a long groan, Steve’s finally able to lift his useless self onto his hands and knees, his body no longer a prison. Death row. “Tony, look, see?” Steve pants with effort. “It’s working, I’m almost up, you did it.” Tony doesn’t even act like he’s aware that he’s still in the same room with Steve. And he’s growing weaker, his eyelids dipping low to hide red eyes, his struggles faltering. _No!_

The suit and the man inside it must weigh a little over four hundred pounds, Steve judges by pushing a gloved hand beneath one of Tony’s metal shoulders and lifting slightly. Not a challenge whatsoever for Steve on a normal day, but normal days don’t torment him with nerve-destroying gas, nor do they typically include the imminent sudden death of a friend. He can’t let this happen.

With a vocal, tedious struggle, Steve manages to get one foot beneath himself, then two. Standing is more difficult than the entirety of basic training. Tony’s gone limp, and a flashing box of dialogue tells Steve he’s merely unconscious. Not dead. Not _fucking_ dead. Tony Stark can’t die. Steve won’t let him.

“C’mon Iron Man,” Steve huffs, hefting Tony’s limp body onto his shoulder with no further delay, because no amount of Tony’s infinite money could afford another for him. “Let’s get out of here.” Pain is a distant, adrenaline-dampened memory now, and Steve positively takes off, sprinting down the hallway, Iron Man’s helmet providing a soothing retreat from the horrible conditions he had to endure completely without earlier. The very fumes of Hell.

And then a terrible, moaning alarm, a new one. “Mr. Stark’s heart has stopped.” JARVIS informs him, and that robotic tone is back, so uncharacteristic of JARVIS.

“No, the door’s right there,” Steve insists while everything gets incredibly slow, and it is, it’s mere feet from him, he can almost touch it… why is Tony dying? “We’re almost there, he can’t be…” It doesn’t make any sense, none of this makes any sense, dammit. This _has_ to be a nightmare. He’s going to wake with a terrified shout any time now, like he does from most of his nightmares. Any time now… C’mon…

He bursts from the facility like a blue lightning strike.

“Oh, my god,” Bruce breathes when Steve deposits Tony’s deathly still form on the sand in front of him and JARVIS finally releases his face from its involuntary confinement inside Iron Man’s helmet. “What in the hell happened?”

“He- I-,” Steve gasps, emits a sob, drops the helmet mindlessly, can’t bring himself to say the word, “his heart stopped, Bruce.” He’s barely aware of Natasha and Clint running over, so shocked and exhausted that hardly anything is registering at all.  

“Shit,” Bruce spits, green flashing dangerously in his irises and kneels immediately next to Tony, digging around on the inside of one of his thighs with determined purpose. “Clint, I’m gonna need your help. No transport out of this area available for at least another fifteen minutes, there’s just been too many injured. It’s up to us.” There must have been a release mechanism there, because after a few grunts from Bruce, the armor disengages, opening with a serious of lively whirs and hisses and clicks, revealing the vulnerable core of Iron Man, his very heart, which happens to consist of Tony Stark.

“Oh, God,” Steve moans helplessly. The man is so pale, so still, face red and slightly glossy with the burn he suffered. Steve’s seen a thousand dead guys in his life, but only one other time had he seen a dead Tony, and he didn’t know him nearly as well then. Natasha comes up beside him, grabs his hand as Clint kneels next to Bruce near Tony’s head.

“What in the nightmarish _fuck_ is going on?” Fury thunders from somewhere behind them, but all Steve can see is Tony’s face as Clint puts his lips over Tony’s, pinching his nose and pulling his head back. Suddenly he’s animated again, as his cheeks blow out, and his chest heaves a small breath, courtesy of Clint, but a breath all the same. Bruce has shocked him twice with his own arc reactor, and that’s a thing that can be done? Why doesn’t Steve know this? Oh, Jesus, why doesn’t Steve know much of anything about Tony? Why didn’t he know about the emergency release on his inner thigh? These are things he should know about, dammit.

Has he not been paying attention at all?

The guilt is overwhelming.

Bruce is performing chest compressions now, in a special fashion to avoid the arc reactor casing, with a hand positioned above it, and one on his side, and, well, Steve’s ashamed he has no idea how to do _that_ either. And the depth at which that device sits in Tony’s chest is one of the most startling realizations Steve’s ever had. It doesn’t even seem possible, how deep it’s drilled into Tony, like a quarry, it howls emptily without its little circle of light to fill it. The reactor itself is out and sitting on Tony’s stomach, still connected, but ready to be utilized as a defibrillator, Steve’s sure, and Steve can see down into the casing. It goes so deep… There’s no way that’s comfortable. How has he not given this a thought until now? Steve must learn more about it, has a damn duty to.

“It’s gonna be okay, he’s a fighter,” Natasha is saying calmly next to him, rubbing his arm, and Steve hears her through sloshing water. “He’ll pull through.”

“He was so weak, Nat,” Steve is crying, falls to his knees feebly, because there’s nothing more he can do. “Something was wrong with him, before he even showed up, I swear, I’ve never seen him look like that, something was _wrong_ with him.”

“Let’s go, Steve, you need medical attention,” Natasha says gently, but her voice, it’s echoing, _vibrating_ around him, because his friends are doing everything they can to keep Tony alive right in front of him, and what the hell is ‘medical attention’ again? This is all that matters right now. Nothing exists but this.

“No… I want to help, I want-”

Tony’s body heaves horribly with all the abuse it’s being subjected to. Fury rushes up with a syringe and plunges it into Tony’s neck, shouts a curse at him, lovingly calls him the ‘dumbest smart mother fucker who ever lived’ with a hitch in his voice. Periodically, Bruce ceases compressions and Clint breathes for Tony, and soon, they switch completely.

Steve just watches, his entire being sinking into a black, lapping nether beneath his feet.

_“Please tell me nobody kissed me.”_

“It’s taking too long,” he whispers, hears one of Tony’s ribs crack, _break_ beneath Clint’s hand even from that distance, loud enough for it to be a whole damn tree falling next to him and it makes Steve flinch. “He came in and put his helmet on me, Nat, and started… choking… he didn’t- didn’t even hesitate, just _did it_. I told him not to, but the bastard’s so damn stubborn, he didn’t listen, he _sacrificed_ himself for me, Nat, I- I can’t...”

“Is someone going to bring me a goddamn bag, or are we waiting for Christmas here, people?!” Bruce roars as he holds Tony's head. An EMT nearby, already aiding another mildly injured individual, transports one over to Bruce, who snatches it with a snarl. “About fucking time.”

A crowd is gathering, murmuring, watching with horrified eyes. “Back the fuck up,” Fury is yelling, moving in front of them with wide arms, and some people do, some don’t. “Back your dumb-ass asses the fuck up, or eat lead, all of you rubber-neckers, get back! It is _not_ worth testing my legendary patience at this particular time!” Steve’s never seen Fury this upset before.

Bruce is shoving something into Tony’s mouth, and then carefully eyeballing the delicate path of a clear tube down his throat. It’s taped down and connected to a large, hollow bulb, and Bruce holds it out. “One of you two, come here, I can’t do everything.”

Steve’s there in a blink.

“Gently, seriously,” Bruce is stressing to Steve as he takes the bulb and marvels at the responsibility he has right now. “Like this.” He places his hands over Steve’s, and helps him squeeze the bag, shows him the proper depth, and Steve exhales with awe when he sees the man’s chest rise and fall. He’s just _breathed_ for Tony. “Concentrate on this, Cap. One breath for him every six seconds, no more, no less.” Steve does, watches the rest of the miserable proceedings through a state of shocked detachment.

“Nat, switch,” Clint is panting, sweat rolling off him in thick rivulets. The desert will do them all in at this rate.

Natasha doesn’t hesitate a single second, rounding Tony’s body, and after a brief demonstration of the alternative compressions, she’s pumping expertly, as though she’s been doing it for years. Down by Tony’s feet, Bruce is searching his ankle for a pulse. A small sign of life. Anything. Clint takes a bottled water and drenches a cloth with it so he can wipe the remnants of the gas from Tony’s slack face. Steve breathes for Tony, a tiny, repetitive movement more gentle and precise than any he’s ever made. It’s like they're all part of some twisted modernized renaissance painting, their individuality on artistic display, as they try desperately to revive the man who happens to be their glue, who keeps them together just like this.

“Med-Evac inbound, sixty seconds,” Fury shouts, and Steve hopes Tony _has_ sixty seconds.

“Oh, my god,” Bruce breathes, fingers scrambling over a certain spot in Tony’s ankle, and huffs a wet, relieved chuckle, “stop, Nat, he’s back, there’s a pulse. He’s back. We got him! We _fucking_ got him!”

“Oh man, always late, Stark,” Clint sighs, but he’s smiling.

“ _Bos Moi,”_ Natasha gasps, falling back onto her calves, sweating the bullets she normally puts into men’s skulls. She touches Tony’s cheek, musses his hair, her lips perk up gratefully.

Steve is silent, so shaken by all this, he can’t barely summon a word, let alone the many required to form a sentence. Tony’s still unconscious, and Steve is told to continue his duty of breathing for him, and that’s fine, it’s rhythmic, it’s easy, keeps him focused. There’s nothing he’d rather do right now, no where he’d rather be. No task is more important than this.  

When transport comes, Steve finds that they all share the same intense protective feeling he’s experiencing; none of them are willing to leave Tony’s side, and they will become snapping dogs should anyone try to get them to.


	11. Chapter 11

_a vast, gaping maw has opened above his tower, and it’s vomiting aliens onto the populace below_

_he’s completely alone. A single man in a tin can against an entire army_

_be cool, be cool, be cool. That drink would have been more effective had he not been tossed from a skyscraper just minutes prior to this, but be cool, don’t hyperventilate._

_oh fuck… this is scary shit_

**_‘huff… huff...’_ **

_his own breath is thunder in his ears_

_his HUD counts three-hundred invaders in less than a minute. there’s only five-hundred missiles of varying strengths on his person. He takes care of thirty of them and experiences a debilitating feeling of inadequacy while the remaining two-hundred seventy pour past him and four hundred more slip through, as though no matter what, he will lose this, that he is utterly insignificant in the face of this_

_shit, breathe, Stark… ignore those screams, there’s nothing you can do about them, calm down, you gotta stay on your toes, this is a delicate ballet recital you’ve had zero practice for_

**_breathe_ **

_breathing is so hard sometimes, like…_

_when a seven-foot-tall Norse god has a hand wrapped around his throat_

_or when a sack’s pulled off his head and he discovers he’s surrounded by a group of hostile savages armed to the teeth with the best weapons around, **his** weapons, or…_

_when his blood toxicity meter beams “87%” at him,_

_or when he’s plunged into a fucking animal trough full of ice water face first, and there’s no concern for when he wants, no, **needs** to breathe. That choice is made for him, at inopportune times_

_or when an alien army is devastating his home, hurting his neighbors_

_his life is just…_

_fuck… please breathe…_

_he pants for the duration of this_

_the confines of his suit provide a nice barrier, hides his terror as he interacts with the others, when they finally get there, that is_

_“what, did you stop for drive-thru?” he’s on the verge of some sort of fucking hysterical meltdown, staring into a canyon of terror, about to fall in, can’t ever let the others know, they all seem so put together. **Deploying defensive protocols; react with inappropriate jokes and semi-hostile banter**_

_“I’m bringing the party to you.”_

**_Jesus, get it off me…_ **

_“better clench up, Legolas.”_

**_and watch my back, please, I barely know what I’m doing, here…_ **

_he invokes freaking Jonah and torpedoes right through a massive, roaring space worm. He’ll have to figure out how they achieve sustained flight later, because what they’re doing, undulating through the air like that, simply isn’t possible; physics says ‘no’_

_but absolutely zero percent of this is explainable by any stretch of legitimate scientific theory, or even the most touched imagination. Two literal gods just engaged in mortal combat right next to his armor rig. There’s a portal to the other side of the galaxy screaming above him, barfing aliens all over his beautiful city like it’s a frat house toilet. There’s no explanation for any of this_

_earlier he was almost filleted by a turbine the size of his mansion_

_just pure insanity_

_he’s pinned down, energy weapons beat him stupid_

_then, Fury is screaming in his comms; a nuclear missile is whistling its lil’ ole’ way towards New York City, courtesy of the World Security Council, an ironic name. And the man for the job is Tony. Like this could get any worse_

_why wouldn’t it?_

_he snatches the little hellion up without a second thought_

_Rogers says something stupid and obvious, and aren’t they past the ‘Stark’ thing yet? C’mon…._

_of course he doesn’t miscalculate; he fucking **means** to graze his tower like that on his way up. Wanted a tangible feeling to bring with him into a fairly-tale, a fantasy land. A nightmare world. Just wanted to touch his home one last time_

_Pepper’s got her phone on vibrate again, goddammit, they’ve talked about this endlessly, it makes him a nervous wreck when she does it. Perfect_

**_…I love you, honey…_ **

_the sucking mouth with teeth inhales him through, chews him up, spits him out. Iron Man abandons him, dies before he does_

_the other side is all stifling cold, bleak, devastating silence, and painful attempts to inhale air that just isn’t there. He drowns in it, slowly. He was always meant to die like this, choking on nothing, wasn’t he? He doesn’t want to die… he can’t breathe…_

“Tony, hey-“ _an opaque whisper from the other side…_

_an explosion two-hundred times larger than ‘Fat Boy’ could ever dream of creating takes place right before his eyes and he doesn’t even get to hear it_

                “Tony, it’s okay, please-“

_shut up, Rogers, quit being an idiot, because it’s **not** okay, he **sees it** , witnesses the city-sized space craft explode into trillions of tons of permanently floating astral debris. Fuck, where did that come from? Are there more? There must be. This can’t be an isolated incident, there’s greater factors at work here_

                “Please calm down, Shell-head. Hey, Bruce?” 

_calm down? He screams voicelessly. He wants to tell them about that massive army so desperately… but he’s dying… and there’s something in his throat…_ “ **-hurp-“** _he’s choking on something… nothing to see here… move along, people…_

“- the ventilator… more Valium…” _Bruce…_

 _Bruce… help me… it hurts_ **“-hurg-“** _he can’t speak at all, can’t move… but of course he can’t, he’s in a vacuum_

_people are speaking all around him, and that doesn’t make sense, no one speaks in space, nothing exists up here for sound waves to travel through. Nothing exists up here at all, nothing but his panic_

“It’s okay, Tony, here…”

_ice runs through his veins. The shock wave strikes him, a gasping suction behind him pulls him back, just as his lungs collapse painfully and he loses consciousness…_

“Shh, that’s it, relax, buddy… It’s gonna be alright…”

**_“huff… huff…”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Birthday, Mr. Stark :)


	12. Chapter 12

They end up stealing their quinjet back from SHIELD and kicking everyone else off.

On the ride home, Steve is quarantined to a controlled environment in the rear of it, the gas he’s saturated with, quickly becoming painfully, eye-wateringly perceptible to the others in the confined space. Simply being around Tony could loosen his preciously uncertain grasp on life, and Steve is willing to be the pariah of the group to prevent that. Willing to be dangerous cargo. Willing to feel so helpless and unserviceable, he might as well be getting sucked into a black hole. He sits on the floor back there, with a foot touching Tony’s armor, which has wrapped itself up into a red and silver suitcase, feeling horrible in ways that have little to do with the effects of the gas.

They hit a rough patch of air, the craft tossing suddenly, and Bruce roars his displeasure.

With a groan, Steve hides his face in a hand and bites back tears, tries to ignore the frantic sounds outside, the rushing of Natasha and Bruce working diligently to keep their friend alive, the occasional, ominous wailing of alarms that make Steve jump through the ceiling each time. The guilt is there, as irrational as it is, because it’s not like he did anything to cause this.

Did he?

Steve’s positive that there was something very wrong with Tony when he’d been pounding on the glass of his workshop and he has a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with the arc reactor. After getting an up close and personal look inside the cavernous metal casing embedded in the man’s chest, Steve’s a little more sympathetic towards him in general. Dear Lord, it can’t be a comfortable existence to lead, with that huge thing _pushed_ into him, probably constricting his lungs, among other things, an undesirable sensation Steve can relate to. It just looked miserable, surrounded by a ring of dreadful, inflamed scar tissue that tells a story all its own. An awful thing to carry around constantly.

Why doesn’t Tony talk about it? He never brings it up, doesn’t complain about it, makes absolutely no jokes regarding it, which, Steve is starting to realize, is significant right there. There’s no jokes about the Arc Reactor, when there’s jokes about everything else? The only time Steve even remembers it’s there is when he catches Tony tapping a beat on it with absent fingers while deep in thought. Doesn’t he trust them?

But… if Steve’s so oblivious to it, why should Tony trust him with any information about it?

God, maybe it _is_ Steve’s fault. Maybe he’s never really given Tony a reason to trust him enough to talk to him about anything outside mission essentials. Steve hasn’t ever bothered to ask about it, anyway, has always considered a distant approach to be most comfortable for Tony. _Ugh_ , but perhaps that was perceived incorrectly, maybe Tony twisted his respectful distance into malevolent apathy. Shoot. What an idiot Steve is, he could have at least asked about the extremely obvious, freaking _glowing_ medical device jutting out of Tony just once.

And Tony still saved Steve’s sorry ass. Captain Rogers has gotten it all wrong again.

“Dammit…” he sighs, sets his head against the wall behind him, his gut, a twisting mass of angry snakes, angry with him for his elected ignorance. Who spends months on a team with a guy and barely gets to know him? The only reason he even knows about Tony’s anxiety is because Bruce had some very strong, green-tinged words for him after a particularly nasty argument between them. And even _then_ , he didn’t pay it any mind, has known plenty of men with much deeper, darker issues. Or so Steve thought… how arrogant of him. What else is Tony hiding beneath that robust exterior? Beneath the armor? Come to think of it, how does someone end up with something like that in their chest?

Steve promises himself he will learn more about Tony, about his arc reactor, will gain Tony’s trust, hear his story straight from his sharp, bearded mouth, instead of reading a single sentence about it off some pitiless SHIELD file. If Tony lives through this, Steve will make sure he understands.

Clint gets them home as fast as Tony’s technology allows him to, at quarter after ten.

Their landing is turbulent, coarse. Steve feels Clint’s unease in it. He steps out of his container and uses tired, worried eyes to watch Bruce and Natasha whisk Tony away down the ramp and inside to the infirmary with anxious haste. Bruce is pushing the gurney and Natasha is on it now, straddling Tony and preforming the very basic action of breathing for him.  It’s chaotic. God, just a few hours ago, Steve had been infuriated with him.

“Hey, you, stop that,” Clint says, and Steve cocks an eyebrow at him. He smiles knowingly, from a safe distance of course, repelled by the gas. “That thing you’re doing; blaming yourself for this shit-show. Stop, it’s not your fault.”

Steve sighs, wants to rub his face, feels like a pillow is being pressed into it he’s so exhausted, but it would just open his pores and push the gas in deeper, burn like hell. Now that he’s considering it, he’s noticing that his entire body aches viciously, and he wonders how long it’s been like that. His adrenaline is so potent, works like a damn charm against pain. Gets his anger going sometimes, too.

“No, it is,” Steve says, walking numbly with Clint toward the decon station, a completely sterile stainless-steel environment situated just to the left of the normal entrance. They play in dangerous chemicals often enough for Tony to feel like he needed to do something, so he built a de-con room right up there near their landing pad. He fixed the problem. Tony fixes everything. “I took him for granted. I didn’t appreciate him.”

“What do you mean?” Clint says with notes of sincerity not usually found there when it comes to Tony’s well-being.

Steve stops just before the door, puts a palm on it and leans heavily, so damn tired he’s about to collapse. Can’t though, he still has a job to do, an obligation to uphold. Whatever horrors await Tony during his recovery, Steve will be there to endure it with him. He owes him that much, at least, being the cause of all this.

“When he found me in there and… and gave me his helmet, he looked sick already, Clint,” Steve says, “he wasn’t being lazy, or hungover, or whatever, he was _ill_. And he didn’t trust us enough to tell us. _Why_?”

Clint is looking at him intensely. “What do you think we could have done differently?” he asks, and Steve appreciates the inclusion of ‘we’. He feels like he’s been dealing with this entirely alone.

Still, he gives a light scoff and a defeated sigh. “I don’t know, maybe asked him more questions about himself? Because I’ll tell you what Clint; for a man who’s supposed to be a narcissist, he doesn’t talk about himself a whole lot.”  

“Or really, ever,” Clint admits with a little cock of his head, a reluctant realization. “You know, I never bought the whole ‘narcissist’ thing. Maybe on television, you know, that’s the character he plays, but, uh… he’s not that person when he’s off-camera, right?”

“It’s a defense mechanism,” Steve concludes, looking sadly into Clint’s eyes, huffing a breath at how obvious it suddenly is, feeling so stupid for having missed it. “It’s all an act, all that bluster, isn’t it? It’s a damn shield to keep us from guessing how much pain he’s in.”

“I think you’re smacking a certain nail on the head, Cap,” Clint says, and nods to the decon unit, “so let’s get this over with so we can go help him out, eh? It’s the only way to fix this.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, nodding firmly.

He steps in, deposits yet another uniform into the biohazard receptacle, so it can be studied or destroyed or whatever Tony intends to do with it. There’s important samples all over it, and Tony will no doubt be hard at work studying it so he can design much needed upgrades for their PPE to combat whatever that gas was. As soon as he wakes up, he’ll be right back at it, no problem at all.

Right?

Completely naked, Steve shivers in the harsh, tepid battering of clean water, then the tingling spray of the decontamination liquid Tony swears by, a bluish mist that swirls up around him, feels minty against his skin, if that’s a reasonable description. Then more clean water, warmer this time. Rinse and repeat twice. A massive fan chills him to his core, but does its job rather swiftly. He steps out feeling refreshed and terrified.

There’s jeans, a black t-shirt and a pair of slippers waiting on the other side for him, alongside dozens of alternate options of all sizes. Courtesy of Tony. He does so much for them, and Steve is starting to notice more clearly than he ever has. Never will he take Tony for granted again.

Down in the infirmary, Steve is greeted by a horror show.

 _Hiss… click… hiss… click;_ the sound of Tony’s aided breathing greets him immediately, gnarls him with guilt before he even enters the room.

“Oh, Tony,” he sighs, disturbed by his friend’s state, and simultaneously impressed by what Bruce and Natasha were able to accomplish at such short notice. Steve stands there, frozen in time again, taking in everything.

Tony’s sat up high off the ground on a technological wonder of a gurney, the back of it set at about a forty-degree angle, dressed in black scrubs and sporting a neck brace, a sheet pulled to his waist. His arc reactor glows so brightly, unaware of its master’s suffering, his desperate clinging to life itself. A tube taped securely inside an apparatus keeping Tony’s mouth slightly open appears to be breathing for him through a large machine to his left. Various screens set up around Tony display his vitals and specifics relating to the arc reactor, and Steve notes the lack of patches and wires all over him, a small blessing. That gurney possesses some strong scanners. He’s hooked to an I.V. by his right arm, and excellent, he’ll need it; the hydration _and_ the pain management. Painkillers should be pumped into the poor man constantly. Please don’t let him suffer any more because of Steve.

 _Hiss… click… hiss… click…_ The rise and fall of Tony’s chest is too robotic, makes Steve terribly uncomfortable, because that’s not how Tony would breathe, dammit. Not at all.

There’s gauze pushed up around the reactor, and Steve is just noticing it when a soft voice behind him interrupts his thoughts.

“Hey, Cap,” Bruce says from where he’s sitting in an office chair encircled by a collection of glass screens, sifting through data from hundreds of tests currently being conducted on Tony’s biology, with a cup of coffee in his unoccupied hand. Clint and Natasha stand behind him, grace Steve with matching somber expressions. “I’m gonna give you the same speech I gave these two; not a single thing will be said in this room that you wouldn’t want Tony to hear.” He stops what he’s doing and glares over at Steve, not aggressive, simply indicative of his rigidness on this subject. “I’m serious, no doom and gloom, no shit-talk, no controversy. You’re here to help him one-hundred percent or you can escort yourself out of here right now, and I can do this totally by my onesie. I don’t want to, but do not test me. I’m pretty damn experienced.  Outside absolute medical necessity, we’re going to try to keep this entire process as stress-free as possible for him, because it’s already going to be horrific without the typical theatrics. Am I perfectly clear?”

“Of course,” Steve says, humbled and trying not to be put off by it, as he one-hundred percent understands why Bruce would feel the need to say it. They could all learn from it.

“Great, now gather ‘round kids, story time,” Bruce instructs firmly, “JARVIS you got those chest scans for me yet? I need to determine the extent of his lung damage.”

“Right here, Doctor,” JARVIS supplies a detailed image for them, as Steve walks around to join the crowd.

Bruce’s loud whistle is telling about the state of Tony’s lungs.

“There it is, see?” Bruce says to them, running his pen across the digital image of Tony’s chest cavity, where it seems a mass of spiders has found prime real-estate. Steve’s stomach clenches with guilt, and relatable familiarity, because he knows those vicious bursts of white aren’t supposed to be there, as unequipped as he is in this field. “Severe chemical pneumonitis, all this crazy white stuff here. That gas brutally damaged his lungs, guys, god, I was hoping it wasn’t this bad. The airway is almost swollen shut, and would be if not for the endotracheal tube. He’ll need to be on the ventilator for a few days, at least, given he actually heals and doesn’t get worse. And I’m being optimistic, here.”

“Sucks to be him,” Clint says, and Natasha swats his hand, hard, “ow! What? Geez, I feel bad for the guy. He doesn’t deserve this.” He rubs his hand with a hiss, and sticks his tongue out at her.

“What do we need to do, Bruce?” she asks quietly, sneering at Clint. She squeezes Bruce’s shoulders, gets a sigh out of him. Glasses come off, and he’s wiping his eyes tiredly.

“He’s gonna need around-the-clock care,” Bruce says, rubbing his temples. His stress is palpable, weighs on Steve, because he already feels responsible for all of this. “Any of you three ever been on a ventilator, or dealt with someone on one?”

“I have,” Natasha says, and they look at her with high brows, “known someone on one, I mean,” she finishes bashfully, large, blue orbs darting between them all.

“Then you understand how awful this is going to be for him?” Bruce asks, swiveling around and looking up at her while he slouches wearily in his chair. “For all of us?”

She smiles, a small sad little quirk of her impossibly red lips. “Intimately,” she says and looks away.

“Serious question, _regarding_ _his well-being_ ,” Clint emphasizes at Natasha’s death glare, “why is he not in a hospital? It seems like the place for him right now.”

“Clint, you see this?” Bruce asks rhetorically with a note of annoyance that Steve attributes to pure exhaustion, circling the enormous outline of Tony’s arc reactor on the image. “This device serves a very important purpose for Tony, medically, but it can also produce enough concentrated power to blow up a small city. There are two people alive in the entire world who happen to understand how it operates and they’re both currently in this room.”

“Oh, okay, makes sense,” Clint says with wide eyes, staring at the image. “That thing is huge, by the way, I didn’t realize it took up so much of his chest. I mean, look at that, half his sternum’s been cut out.”

Steve doesn’t know how Clint can talk about it so casually, because the thought of it is horrifying, the detailed image, making him feel ill.

“Yeah, and unfortunately, all our hard work aggravated it,” Bruce says, enlarging the image toward the very obvious broken rib, “speaking of which; nice little crack you left there for me, Clint, thanks.”

Clint scoffs, crosses his arms and rolls his eyes. “Hey, in my defense, that was the first time I’d ever done CPR like that.”  

“ _I_ managed to not break him further,” Natasha gloats with a smirk.

“ _Alright_ ,” Steve says sternly toward them both, and Bruce is waving the image away, but Steve had seen it already, noticed the familiar crackle of scar tissue in Tony’s lungs, sitting just visible within the new injuries. His own x-rays used to look like that. The first time he tried to enlist, they caught it during medical, showed it to him as his heart sank into his shoes, photographic proof of his asthma, his damned weakness. All he could do was play stupid. They either bought it or took pity on him and let him go instead of arresting him.

Tony has massive scarring in his lungs, and from what Steve can tell, he was never a smoker, nor does he have asthma.

A topic for later.

“Tonight, I’m gonna keep him sedated, he needs to rest,” Bruce informs them, chugging his coffee as though someone is going to steal it from him. He finishes with a gasp. “But tomorrow, I want him up so I can explain what’s going on to him, ask him some questions, especially about wanting to be sedated or not, because I have a hunch he’d be very angry about being knocked out for a week, ventilator or not.”

Steve’s gaze wanders over to Tony, and everything else starts to fade slowly into tints and blurs and static around him, soft hums and unidentifiable pressure, so stricken with pity and culpability, that he’s afraid for a second he might pass out. The earth beneath him shifts a little.

“Cap, you good?” Clint is asking, and Steve finds himself nodding numbly.

“Yeah, I’m just… I’m gonna go see him,” he says, and he knows they’re all looking at each other with concerned expressions as he wanders away, moves toward Tony like he’s being pulled by a magnet. He pushes a chair up to him and sits, takes Tony’s hand in both of his. It doesn’t grip back at all. Hell, Steve would have preferred a disgusted reaction over this limp susceptibility, a sneer and a nasty _‘go kum-bah-ya with someone else, Cap, damn’_ , would have been so nice compared to this.

“I’m sorry Tony,” he whispers, pressing his forehead against the back of Tony’s hand. “Thank you. For everything. For saving me. For this home. For your diligence and the dedication you put in to keeping us safe and comfortable and equipped. It’s invaluable, _you’re_ invaluable, Tony. I’m sorry I’ve never told you that.”

When he looks up, he finds Tony’s throat working slightly, the tube in it and the complex gadgetry it’s connected to, shifting with it. “Tony, hey you,” Steve breathes with a smile, scooting closer, but Tony doesn’t respond, just moves a leg, works his throat some more. His eyebrows are dipping low, and he’s beginning to act distressed, sweat glistening on his temple. The hand Steve isn’t holding begins to wander jerkily up to his mouth, and Steve grabs it. “Tony, it’s okay, please don’t touch anything.” But he keeps straining, gains some strength and kicks his left leg out hard, his throat working furiously against the intrusion in it. He gags soundlessly. “Please calm down, Shell-head. Hey Bruce?”

“Geeze already?” Bruce sighs as the alarms ping their warning, wastes no time coming over to help, “he’s either fighting the ventilator, or he’s built up secretions in the tube, which is remarkable, I just put that in. JARVIS, pump some more Valium into him, please.”

“Administering dose,” JARVIS replies.

“Every hospital should have a JARVIS,” Bruce murmurs offhandedly. Tony gags again, and Steve can’t help but brush his hair back, hope it’s some small comfort to him. It’s upsetting, how quiet he is, his suffering known only to him. He’s trembling something awful. “It’s okay, Tony, here, let’s see about that tube.” He’s starting to calm, and soon, Steve is comfortable enough to release his wrists as the influence of the drugs overwhelms discomfort. He falls heavily back into an induced slumber. “Shh, that’s it, relax, buddy. It’s gonna be alright.” The Hulk’s alter ego is surprisingly gentle.

Bruce is threading a thin catheter into a valve connected to Tony’s breathing tube, and Steve can’t look elsewhere, in the same sort of way people will strain to merely glimpse at an accident on the highway, while he uses a machine to suction a sickening black gunk from Tony’s lungs. “Jesus, _black?_ JARVIS, run tests. He’s lucky he’s out for this,” Bruce remarks as he works, “it isn’t a fun procedure. Has anyone gotten ahold of Pepper, yet?”

“I will,” Natasha says before Steve can offer, and exits the room at a brisk walk.

“Here, put these on him,” Bruce instructs, and Steve looks down to discover a pair of padded restraints he seems to have extracted from matching compartments in the gurney sides. “Sedation is really difficult on some people. It can induce nightmares, hallucinations, a terrifying inability to distinguish what's real. They wake up and try to rip out their tubes, and they can do it in a heartbeat. It’s just safer, Cap.”

Steve understands. His hands are shaking. With a resigned sigh, he takes Tony’s right wrist, encases it in the shelter of a thick cuff, buckles it in place, and feeling not so great about it despite its necessity. He repeats it with the left wrist, dancing around Bruce as he uses a brush and some saline to wet the inside of Tony’s mouth. “Thank you, Steve.”

“Why is he so quiet?” Steve wonders, exhausted to the bone and needing a break, joining Clint where he’s been sitting on the visitor’s couch, watching the activities unfold before him with an expression of deep concern.

“There’s an inflatable cuff that keeps the breathing tube from getting dislodged in his trachea, and it completely restricts his vocal cords from receiving any air stimulation,” Bruce reveals, and the information weighs heavily on Steve, just one more torturous thing Tony has to deal with due to Steve's neglect, “he can’t vocalize at all. Which is why we need to be extra aware of him. Thankfully, we have JARVIS.”

“I’m gonna… uh… go make a phone call,” Clint says, looking a tad pale, and Steve’s barely aware of him leaving, in a slight state of shock from all the misery he’s just witnessed. All of Tony’s misery.

“Come here, Cap, I want to show you something,” Bruce says. Steve rubs his face, doesn’t know if he can handle any more tonight, his emotions as battered as one of his punching bags. But he gets up anyway, driven by intense obligation, a damn _promise_ , and walks back over. Bruce has removed some of the gauze around the arc reactor, revealing inflamed, raw, furious flesh, shiny with infection. “This is why he was hiding. He’s sick as a dog, he’s on the brink of sepsis for Christ’s sake,” Bruce is whispering in an urgent tone, eyes furious with his need to make Steve understand. “I had to alter his Morphine dose because there was already some in his system. This thing in his chest? It’s a nightmare for him, Steve. You better be prepared to tell him all that nice stuff to his face when he wakes up.”

Steve is starting to feel more and more like he’s inside a nightmare himself.

“I will.” He takes one of Tony’s restrained hands and squeezes it. “I’m gonna be here every step of the way,” he ensures Bruce, and hopes, irrationally, that Tony’s heard him, too.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Broke 900. Can't even express how much all the support means to me, guys, thank you. I can't say it enough, thank you, again and again, all the way to the moon, to infinity and beyond, thank you. Hey! Don't be scared, let me know what you think, I want to hear from you, and I'll get back to you 99% of the time.  
> And if the original prompter is still around, I'm sorry, I've forgotten who you are, but I needed to say thank you for allowing me to take this prompt. 
> 
> <3
> 
> I'm gonna try to update this again on Sunday, I'll see how my weekend goes. Tuesday at the latest. Happy Friday!


	13. Chapter 13

_why did they do that to him?_

_as he’s dragged back to his enclosure, his little habitat he shares with a stranger, Tony **wheezes.** And they really are dragging him this time, limp and dripping like a used beach towel in their hands. He can’t stand at all_

_he broke for them. why didn’t they stop?_

_they’re fucking monsters, that’s why. There is no metaphor_

**_he cannot catch his breath_ ** _. His diaphragm is out of control, completely lacking a maintainable rhythm, sucking with lungs too abused to even summon the willpower to inflate fully for him. The air around him suddenly isn’t air at all, consists of thick, molten lead_

_There’s liquid sloshing in his ears. His head feels like an aquarium_

_He coughs hoarsly, gags and vomits more water, which he leaves in a dripping trail behind him. He drank so much trying not to breathe it in. But for all his efforts, it still crackles, pops and snaps an agonizing little symphony in his chest, and he didn’t even need to add milk_

_Keebler Elves…_

_No, different product. The Keeblers dealt in cookies, had a factory in a tree, the others were brothers… or something? Three of them. Cereal mongers. Rice Krispies. They were actually called Snap, Crackle, and stupid-ass Pop, weren’t they?_

_how in the world is he supposed to build a Jerhico missile? He’s thinking about little fucking cookie elves and cereal over here. He’s going to die of hypoxia. Or hypothermia. Or sepsis. Or a combination of all three. He’s soaked and trembling so violently, maybe he’ll just shake apart before he has to worry about it_

_they don’t bother to untie him when they throw him and his battery into the dirt like he’s actual garbage and slam the door shut_

_the kind stranger he resides with, his unwilling roommate, is there in a heartbeat, shifting him onto his back, his bound hands. Tony flinches, because this man cut a hole into him, carved it out of him without even asking. Not cool_

_“go to Hell,” he means to say, but all he can do is lay there and hyperventilate pathetically, a desperate high-pitched sucking of gravel_

_“relax, Stark”_

_he’s vaguely aware of something massive being shoved into one of his nostrils, so far back it makes him retch. Can’t fight it, too damn weak, and his right eye streams like it’s trying to drown the incursion_

_“the alternative is death, Mr. Stark, this is nothing”_

_then, something is placed over his mouth and nose, a face mask. It creates a suction and a soft push just before a rush of lovely oxygen fills his lungs almost completely effort free. Suddenly the tube that was unexpectedly shoved in his face is extremely welcome_

_“there you go. Relax, breathe with it”_

_oh, god, thank you so much…_

“Tony?”

_finally, he’s **breathing** , not water, not razors, but real air, looking up at the stranger, so grateful for him, despite not even knowing his damn name. Never mind his invasive tactics. He never meant to hurt Tony, only did what needed to be done to keep him alive_

“That’s it, Tony, can you see me? Look here.” _a bright flash across his eyes, and he baulks_

_wait, this man’s name is Bruce, right? no, no, he doesn’t know a ‘Bruce’_

_when his bonds are cut, he grasps at the man’s arm, lays in his lap and appreciates what he’s doing so much, breathing for him like this, because it was terribly problematic before. He lets his eyes slip closed, even manages to doze off…-_

“Tony, stay awake. Look at me.”

_but he **is** looking_

He blinks slowly…

_Where…?_

The chilling darkness of the cave swirls into bright lights above him, shining brilliant rays around blobs of dull colors. Slow, fluid movement and a soft, echoing voice in his ear. Everything’s pulsing weirdly. It sounds like ghosts are moaning everywhere, and they’re not even close to Halloween yet.

What the hell happened?

Something’s off. His limbs are heavy, he’s floating in syrup. He can’t groan, though he tries, wants to, but something else is choosing when he breathes. And it’s like… he doesn’t even _have_ a mouth or a throat. Swallowing isn’t something he can do anymore, and his own painful attempts to draw a full breath are completely aborted and met with stronger, phantom ones which, weirdly enough, inflate his chest _for_ him in a burst of uncomfortable pressure.

There’s little old man elves dancing just within his peripheral. They’re holding cookies above their heads and laughing hysterically with red eyes and hooked fangs.

_What in the acid-dropping fuck?_

He shuts his eyes before he can fully focus on anything.

No, it’s simply too much for him. _Just go back to sleep, it’s easier… comforting… a cool embrace…_

“Tony, c’mon, wake up for me.”

It makes him jolt. He’s getting angry, now. _Fuck off, I’m so tired, and there’s elves…_

“Listen, you were exposed to a toxic nerve agent and it severely damaged your lungs. You’re in the infirmary at the tower, and you’re in serious condition.”

Bruce is speaking in his loud confused-patient-coming-around voice, and Tony jerks his head a little towards it, can’t go far, however, something is constricting his movement. Horrible clarity returns with the sound of rushing winds. _…okay._

_Right. Arizona. The gas. Rogers._

_Is he alright?_

“You have a tube in your throat, and it’s attached to a machine that’s helping you breathe. I need to you to relax and let it do its job.”

_Wonderful._

A weak attempt to bring a hand up and figure out what’s going on with his non-existent mouth is met with sturdy resistance.

_Oh, c’mon._

“You’re restrained, Tony, you’ve already tried to pull it out once.”

_God, what do you expect from me? There’s a fucking garden hose down my throat. What did you do to me?_

“Wake up a little more for me, and I can take them off.”

Small, courteous pings provide an audible warning of his distress, and he knows because he designed those pings. Now, they’re the only voice he has in here. His chest heaves double-time, his anxiety fighting ferociously against the machine. Ventilator. He’s on a ventilator. For his ‘severely’ damaged lungs, apparently. _C’mon, Stark, think, dammit, keep it together. It’s stupid to fight this. Do you want to suffocate to death again?_

“Hey, I need you to calm down and stop trying to breathe, you’re not doing yourself any favors.”

_What the hell does that even mean? How do you just not breathe, Bruce, huh?_

“Figure it out, Tony. You’ve been through worse, I know you have.”

_What the fuck do you know, Banner?_

He wants to scream, the exact opposite of what he’s capable of, which is literally nothing, simply an isolated, crushing silence and a sensation of utter biological slavery. His own breaths just will not come. Logic tells him to shut up and try to do what Bruce says, but his anxiety is so powerful, a massive beast that dominates logic every time, tears it to shreds and leaves it trembling in a corner. Something is choosing when he gets to breathe, and he’s quite sick of _that_ constantly happening to him. He grips at the sheets because that’s all his goddamn restraints will allow. The sedative is wearing off quickly, running from him, and he feels like chasing it down, escaping this...

“Tony, look at me,” a person, or a monster, with Bruce’s voice is saying. Tony doesn’t want to, terrified he’ll open his eyes and find himself right back in the sandbox. It’ll be Yinsen or Raza there instead of Bruce, and… he’s so vulnerable right now, fuck, _fuck_ , anyone could do anything to him. Maybe he never even left. God, maybe he’s still there, and the Avengers and Pepper and- and _everything,_ was all just a terror-induced hallucination, nothing more.  

Someone takes his hand in theirs, squeezes, and he squeezes back with all his might, his grip probably yielding pressure equivalent to a kitten sneezing. It’s tangible, this feeling… warm skin on his, the soft, unremitting brushing of a thumb over his knuckles. This is real, this is okay, this is recovery, maybe. He slowly opens his eyes.

“Tony, I know it’s scary, but you need to focus,” Bruce is saying, the real Bruce, and Tony searches through the fog for him, squints against piercing light he knows is already dim. “Hey, over here,” movement a little to his left, and he blinks wearily up at a mass of tints and shapes which slowly morphs into a smiling Bruce Banner. “There he is. Hey, buddy, good to see ya. Now, I need you to stop breathing. I know it sounds crazy, but there’s a perfectly good machine here willing to do it for you.”

_Tell me how, and I will, you dim shit-stick._

He really couldn’t be in a worse mood.

“Don’t look at me like that, I’m trying to help you,” Bruce says in response to Tony’s dog-tired, frantic, frustrated glare, and places his hand lightly on his heaving chest, right above the reactor. “It’s okay, Tony. Just trust me, please. Shut yourself off for a second and see what happens. It can’t get worse than this, am I right?”

Tony searches deep, hazel eyes for any hint of deceit. _I mean… that makes sense…_

_Wait, who’s holding my hand?_

It takes a few attempts and some blinking, as his eyes don’t want to work properly, and he’s pretty sure his neck’s in some kind of brace, but eventually he manages to focus on the person to his right; and it’s Steve fucking Rogers, alive and _not_ on a damn ventilator, the lucky, star-spangled bastard.

_Well, good, there’s one less thing to worry about._

“Hey, Shell-head,” Steve says, smiling kindly, a subtle apprehension barely concealed behind it. Tony’s just glad the guy can smile at all and that he’s not as dead as Tony feels. “Just stop trying so hard, okay? You don’t have to right now. Relax for a bit, you deserve it.”

_Right._

Steve’s eyes are such a deep blue.

“View it as a vacation from breathing,” Bruce says next to him, his hand a soft, inspiring presence on his chest.

_Okay._

And he finally stops struggling. Stops breathing.

The machine immediately picks up where he left off, and it’s not nearly as terrifying as he thought it would be to let it do so. It’s almost liberating, not having to do it for himself. Breathing is so difficult sometimes.

“Great, awesome job, Tony,” Bruce says as pleased alarms die off gradually. Tony closes his eyes and actively applies no effort to breathing, while still… well, _breathing_ , and receiving enough oxygen to not be in a wild panic. Weird. “I’m going to take your neck brace off now. Don’t move around too much, you do still have a rather large tube in your throat, it might twinge a bit if you so much as do a double-take.”

There’s some gentle jostling of his head to get the brace off, but he still doesn’t feel the tube, can’t move his throat or his tongue, his lips, and he hopes that’s normal, hopes Bruce applied anesthetic there to numb it and that he isn’t permanently damaged in some way. It’s freaking him out, and he wants a chance to see if he can deal with it sans anesthetic, if that’s what this is. Not that he can vocalize his request at all, which may just prove to be the most frustrating part of this whole thing so far; not being able to speak.

Still, it feels good to have a bit of his mobility back. Appreciate the little things right now, it’s so important. He shrugs his shoulders slowly, finds his body tremendously stiff but remarkably free of pain. Rogers doesn’t seem to want to let go of his hand.

_Okay, this isn’t so bad, considering. I can do this._

“Can you give me a thumb’s up?” Bruce inquires of him.

_Maybe._

Tony opens his eyes and looks down at his left hand, curious of the answer himself. Moving it is like putting on a glove made of thumb tacks, its movements jerky and out of sync with the signals he’s sending it. The grimace he makes, and the single, painful rise of his chest separate from the ventilator’s influence, are the only indicators of his discomfort.

But he does it.

“Good,” Bruce says, checking for a pulse in Tony’s ankle with his fingers. _There’s a scanner for that, Bruce, why won’t you trust the equipment?_ “Now, give me a thumbs-up if I can remove those restraints without worrying about you yanking out the only thing keeping you alive.”

There’s really no pressing urge to liberate his mouth, restraints or not. Whatever shenanigans are going on in there, he can’t feel a bit of it anyway, and breathing is preferable to whatever slight discomfort a little tube down the throat could induce. So he braves the needles, twists his hand into that symbol, his key.

“Nice. Steve, show him what he’s won.”

Steve graces him with an apologetic smile Tony could have gone without right now, and frees his arms for him.

“Are you in pain?” Bruce wants to know as he sifts through data on a screen, “Thumbs up for ‘no’.”

Tony considers himself. Perhaps it’s the lingering effects of the sedatives, but he feels nothing, or, a humming numbness. Pain lurks just beneath it, he’s sure. The infected arc reactor had been the start of all this, and it’s probably worse by now. But no pain.

Psh. _Take your stupid thumbs-up._

This is cake. A big chocolate one, which he plans to devour immediately following this as a reward for his heroism. What’s he got to do, spend a day with something breathing for him? Please, he’s had crack open-heart surgery in a dusty cave completely awake, this is like Disney Land. There’s painkillers here.

A bit of drag within his artificial airway hitches in his chest, throws off his tenuous partnership with the machine.

_What the…?_

It happens again, microwave popcorn at each inhale and exhale, and suddenly he feels he needs to breathe more, isn’t getting enough at all. Pings are his voice and he screams through them, pleads Bruce with desperate eyes to explain what the hell is going on. It’s helped tremendously so far, knowing what’s happening, waking up to someone coaching him through it, and thank fuck he didn’t wake up alone, god, what a nightmare that would have been.

“It’s secretions in your tube, brother,” Bruce enlightens him while he fiddles with the machine, and Tony’s infinitely grateful when a rush of life floods him despite the resistance. “Enjoy that for a second.”

There’s the loud crunching of plastic being torn next to him, of Bruce getting ready to do something to him, and it barely registers, because he’s feeling… buoyant? Is that the term? Whatever it is, it settles beneath him, a cool breeze, and lifts him.

“Just a little pure oxygen, alright? I have to suction your breathing tube, Tony.”

_Whatever, just do it…_

“I’m going to thread a catheter into your tube until it reaches all the way down into your lungs. It’s going to make you cough and gag and it’s going to be rather uncomfortable.”

_What else is new?_

“I’m going to apply a small suction as I pull it back out to remove secretion buildup. This can hurt, Tony, I’m not going to sugar coat it for you.”

_Who, pain? Yeah, I know that guy, pretty well, one of my best friends, actually. Always there for me._

Steve takes his hand again, a silent beacon of never-ending strength he can draw from through his wretched kitten grip. Nice to have him give a shit for once, even if it took all this to get it from him.

When he opens his eyes, he discovers Bruce there, looking down at him sadly, holding an enormous length of slender tubing in his gloved hands, and holy shit, is the one in his windpipe _that_ long? “Five seconds,” Bruce says, holding up five fingers, “that’s all this is going to take. You ready?”

_No._

The nod he gives is curt, and his thumbs-up dreams of becoming a bird one day.

“Please, _please_ don’t grab at anything.”

Bruce opens a valve near his mouth, and shit, _there it is,_ moving in there. The tube is suddenly so obvious, so bulky in his throat, like a chunk of steak is lodged in it, and he’s gagging noiselessly before they even get started. The catheter is threaded in blessedly quickly. The ‘coughing’ Bruce mentioned is nothing more than tiny, nearly inaudible huffs through his tube, and a painful straining of his throat, which has decided right now, of all times, to return from the realm of lost body parts.

“Doing good, Tony, almost done.”

_Not doing good…_

He clenches his eyes shut, brawls with his gag reflex. There’s so much pressure in his head, in his lungs, his chest, everywhere.

What was that about chocolate cake?

The ‘five seconds’ of suctioning Bruce applies as he pulls it out leaves Tony with questions about his perception of time.  Nothing compares to having the breath stolen right from his lungs like this. No, wait… space. Being exposed to space is close.

_A huge explosion... a sucking gasp…_

“Tony, hey,” Steve’s voice is louder, clearer than the vision, his touch, concrete, and it brings him down, situates him back on the earth within the protective confines of the laws of gravity.  

Honestly, though, his former resolve is being shaken, sucked right out of him along with a startling black gunk he can see passing jerkily through the hose like hundreds of skittering insects.

_Oh god, what is that?_

“There, all done,” Bruce is saying. Tony’s eyes water pitifully as he silently reigns in his terror and gag reflex best he can.

_Wait! What the hell was that black shit?_

Scrambling fingers dislodge themselves from Rogers’ hand, and he locates the button on the side of the bed he knows will summon a little hologram text box and keyboard he can communicate with. Pressing the button is simple, but his fingers are defiant, too shaky to perform any delicate function at all. He sneers at them, and he can kind of do that now, but along with renewed awareness of his mouth and lips, comes a desert-like dryness. The stinging pull of harsh tape on his beard. A plastic _thing_ wedged between his teeth and fastened around his head to keep him from biting the tube.

Still preferable over having a void for a mouth.

Stretching his fingers does nothing to improve coordination. Fucking sedatives. Those have to go, no more of that.

He might as well be a statue, a broken, voiceless statue, neglected and allowed to crumble into the dirt below it.

_I want to see Pepper._

The machine breathes for him, overrides his need to panic. His eyes display everything his loud mouth can no longer shield for him. He wonders how long he’s going to have to live like this. _Exist_ like this.

“It’s going to be okay, Tony,” Steve lies, smiles warmly when Tony glowers miserably at him. “Scary, huh?”

_Fucking, you think?! You looking for a promotion, Captain Obvious?_

He nods at Steve. This is so pathetic.

And then the pain hits him, catches up to him and wallops him in what’s left of his sternum. His chest shatters like glass, and the familiar rubbing of a broken rib twangs through him. Everything grays out with it. It must be bad, he thinks maybe he tries to do something, and he doesn’t even get a chance to tell Bruce no sedatives before he fades into shadows again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love hearing what you all have to say, so please leave me a comment if you've got a chance. If not, I love you all the same just for stopping by :D


	14. Chapter 14

It’s been a long time since Steve’s become physically ill over anything.

After all, he possesses one of the world’s hardiest immune systems. There’s no food poisoning for him; that gas station egg salad _always_ looks just fine, as does anything else that isn’t already visibly putrid. The flu doesn’t bother anymore, gets eaten up by his wolfish, built-in antibodies before it can even breach the gate. He can’t get drunk.

Steve Rogers has witnessed men holding their own severed feet without even a gag.

This though, this thing with Tony…

They get him sedated, restrained, reposition his breathing tube, and Steve’s stomach is roiling by the end of it. He barely makes it to the restroom in time.

God, it’s been so long, he’s forgotten how terrible it is. It’s noisy, it hurts, there’s enormous pressure and, _bleh_ , his _nose_ , it’s coming out his damn nose. Sunshine and daisies compared to Tony’s suffering. Tony’s being _fed_ through his nose right now.

Awful. Horrific. Bruce was absolutely justified in using such provoking verbiage to describe Tony’s recovery. And they didn’t even get to inform him about the extent of the damage. How after twelve hours, his lungs show zero signs of improvement.

Tony’s eyes are so expressive, and it’s painful to watch him perform a soundless, unintelligible opera of suffering with them. Confusion, swift anger, intense fear, a shimmering vulnerability, and at one point Steve noticed a dark, startling dullness eclipse their usual bright shine, as though Tony was wandering off somewhere else. Steve’s seen that before, in the eyes of men who lost themselves within the carnage, the broken ones wrung too brutally by war to continue being anything but a shrieking, sobbing liability. The ones who couldn’t hide it any longer. Tony looked like that for a second, as his lungs were being suctioned. Steve has never seen a shadow like that in those depthless brown eyes before.

But before that, a glimpse of incredible strength, and even a sparkle of humor, just after Tony learned to work with the breathing machine. What an impressive feat of courage that was to watch. Steve’s not sure he could have done the same, learned to deal with it like that. The thought of waking up to something breathing for him, an unwilling prisoner in his own body, scares the hell out of him.

The flusher is automatic. _Everything_ here is automatic. Steve doesn’t even have to flush the damn toilet because of Tony. It’s like his spirit is there doing it for him, _“don’t look at that, Cap, that’s a mess, ugh, here, let me get that for ya. There, you go. Now, why are you all upset over me?”_

_We need you, Tony, that’s why._

He pants, swallows raggedly, takes a wad of toilet paper and wipes his mouth with it. The floor is suddenly inviting, and he sits heavily, though he’s still restlessly uncomfortable. A pressing need to get back to Banner is tingling in him, but… then he’s got to reorient himself with Tony’s condition all over again. See him, like _that_ again. He’s tied to his damn bed for Pete’s sake.

_Get it together, Rogers. You should be stronger than this. He would do the same for you._

Whenever one of them is injured and laid up, Tony is there, ensuring everything goes smoothly, making drinks for them, happily fulfilling requests relating to environment and entertainment, laughing and cracking jokes to lighten the mood. Steve can at least get it together enough to not feel ill just by being in the same room with him.

Picking himself up is difficult; he’s been chasing the hyper jackrabbit that is sleep for two days. Food has been like sludge in his mouth, and his little handshake with illness just now didn’t help him in the least. When he makes it to the sink and catches sight of himself in the mirror, it’s like a ghost is staring back. Or a disheveled raccoon. He washes his hands, splashes cool water on his face, and tries not to look too hard.

Bruce is sitting within his little circle of glass screens again, sifting through data and appearing just as exhausted and stressed as Steve is, probably more so. Of course, Tony is still completely out, but Steve walks over to him all the same to squeeze his hand, motivated by some inexplicable need to acknowledge him even when he’s unconscious. Peaceful, is how Steve would describe him right now, but he knows it’s dishonest, a still calm before a wild storm. There won’t be peace when Tony wakes and realizes he’s plus a tube, a thin, blue one in his nose that reaches miles into his stomach. At least, it felt like miles, while Bruce carefully threaded it in with a downtrodden expression, forever and ever, it seemed.

“You’ll be in similar shape if you don’t get some rest soon,” Bruce remarks in a rough voice. Steve turns to find him scanning his body from over his glasses, up and down as only a physician would.

“Same could be said about you,” Steve says kindly, and shares a sad smile with him as he drags his chair from earlier around so he can sit in it and see both Tony and Bruce. “Except you’ll be big, and green.”

Bruce runs a hand through his already tousled hair, removes his glasses and lets them dangle from his neck, rubs his eyes with his palms. It’s a physical play-by-play of exactly how Steve feels. “I’ve been arguing with the other guy for the past ten minutes,” he admits, and Steve quickly searches for green tint, stomach untwisting itself when he finds none, “he’s upset with me. I’m hurting his friend. Like I enjoy doing this to him? You big, green, melon-headed idiot.”

“What happened?” Steve wants to know, never really received an explanation into why Tony lost himself like that.

“I under-dosed him. I should have used something stronger than morphine, maybe fentanyl,” Bruce says with a growling tone of self-deprivation. “I forgot that this man has some of the thickest skin I’ve ever seen. He will flat-out ignore severe pain until it’s literally crippling him.”

How does someone get like that? Steve’s pain tolerance was injected into him. “That thing in his chest hurts him constantly, doesn’t it?” Steve questions, feeling a bleak shade roll in to dampen his mood even further, a dismal, rainy day.

“I’d say that’s a safe assumption.” Bruce furrows his brow and looks away, and Steve watches a litany of expressions cross his face. Finally, he grimaces at Steve, “Green Bean wants me to call you ‘oblivious’ for him. Sorry, I’m, uh, actually pretty impressed with his vocabulary right now. He’s very upset.”

Steve sighs heavily and sinks in his chair as huge boulders of shame swing from him, weigh him down, down in the damn dirt where he belongs. “Here I’ve gone and pissed off the Hulk.”

“He likes Tony,” Bruce reminds him, smiling and shrugging at Steve’s despondent expression, because Steve knows Tony is the _only_ person Hulk likes, “he was the first person to ever see potential in him, other than mass destruction and fear. To see him as a team member. Back when we had Loki on the carrier, after you called his tower ugly and left to do the same thing you’d just scolded him over, Tony let me in on what that device in his chest does. Do you know what it’s for?”

Bruce is staring at him, and Steve’s realizing, with burning humiliation and a shrill ringing in his ears, that he knows so little about Tony, it’s criminal. “I know it has something to do with his heart,” he offers pathetically, and hides his eyes with his hand. The exhaustion is aching in him. “It said it powers a pacemaker and his armor. His dossier did, I mean.”

“His _dossier_.” Bruce raises a disbelieving eyebrow and sighs. “His incredibly redacted dossier. Geez, let’s just say he has a lot more in common with you than you might think,” he says mysteriously, and Steve wants to press for more, but he knows Bruce would never give it up willingly. He expects Steve to get it out of Tony somehow, that’s probably it. “Tony made an active effort to relate to me, Steve. No one’s done that since…. Since the, uh, _accident_.” A pause. Bruce is smiling at Tony now, a slight glimmer in his eyes, “he made me realize I could be something more than a pitiful, scared vagrant, and he, you know, he gave me a _home_. Do you know what that means to me? I haven’t had a safe place to lay my head in over four years, Steve. I’m the most dangerous thing on the planet, I have fifty people after me at any one time, and Tony offered to let me _live_ with him. What kind of man does it take to do that?”

That information had always been kept extremely vague before now. Steve doesn’t know what to say. At this point though, that’s probably for the better. Maybe it’s time for him to shut up and listen for a change.

Tony’s breaths are loud and mechanical next to him.

“I need his help,” Bruce says, resting his elbow on a chair arm and cradling his forehead, sounding more strained than Steve’s heard thus far. “That’s why I’m trying to wake him up. I need another brain on this, and his happens to be the best. He’s… he’s not healing, Steve, and I don’t- well, I don’t know what to do.” He says the last few words like he’s finally admitting it to himself as well, and finishes with a terrified, manic chuckle that sounds a little damp at the end.

Conditions in Steve’s veins are black, stay off the roads, if possible. “How can I help?” he asks, overcome by panic and chilling comprehension. What does Bruce even _mean,_ he doesn’t ‘know what to do’? Bruce _always_ knows what to do.

“You can go get some sleep,” Bruce instructs, and Steve scoffs angrily. “No, seriously. If you plan on pulling this night shift, you better be prepared to stay awake, because Tony is a night owl, normally. You already look like the Bride of Frankenstein over there and I’m having doubts about your stamina.”

“What about you?” Steve needs to know. He’s exhausted, but he’d rather be so than leave Bruce alone.

“Clint and Natasha will be here shortly,” Bruce says, rolling his chair over to the coffee machine for a refill, “I’ll sneak a nap in. Don’t worry about me, Steve, you need to get some sleep. Don’t forget, you were exposed to this stuff too.”

It’s true. Everything is already beginning to blur at the edges, and Steve experiences a dizziness he hasn’t felt since his asthma days. And, yikes, was that a bug? Crap, there’s another one. No, impossible, it’s cleaner here than anywhere Steve’s ever been.

Bedtime is imminent for him, either in the comfort of his room, or suddenly and forcefully against the floor of this medical ward. “Okay,” he relents, nodding to reinforce it to himself too, and starts to get up.

“Hey, would you do me a favor?” Bruce asks, as Steve’s grasping Tony’s hand in a pitiful farewell he wishes the other man could return.

“Whatever you need,” Steve assures him. Tony’s skin is warm with mild fever.

“Could I, uh, get a blood sample from you?” The request is made with an awkward smile, and Steve can’t see a problem with it.

A few vials of blood and one infinitely thankful Bruce later, Steve ignores doctor’s orders and doesn’t go to sleep. There’s no way his stomach would let him anyway.

“Hey, JARVIS?” he inquires once in the safety of his quarters on the fortieth floor. The décor is modest, utilizes muted tones, a subtle nod from Tony, an unspoken understanding Steve never noticed before all this bullshit indisputably opened his eyes.

“Yes, Captain?”

The icy tone makes him cringe. “Still mad at me?” he asks as he strips, tosses his clothes aside wherever to worry about later and retreats to the latrine to take a much-needed shower.

“I am incapable of anger, I am a program.”

That’s not the impression Steve got the other day, when JARVIS had dangerous weapons trained on him, but whatever. He has no beef with Tony’s AI, and there’s more pressing matters at hand. “Could you please do me a favor?” More flies with honey, or something like that.

“It would be my pleasure.”

The shower is completely customizable, and Steve had it set with five different favorite modes following a few hours of tampering the day after moving in. He selects the one that will beat a massage into his back, and stands beneath it with a sigh.

“Can you pull up all accessible information on Tony that you wouldn’t consider negative?” Everything shoved at him about the guy is so disproportionally undesirable. Maybe sifting through that acidic river of nonsense can prospect up some gold.

“I will attempt to remain impartial in my definition of ‘negative’.” JARVIS assures him. “The information will be available to you once you have rested agreeably.”

“Are you giving me a bedtime?” Steve asks with an incredulous huff of laughter.

“I have a procedural obligation to ensure Mr. Stark stays alive,” JARVIS supplies, “you are no aid to him if you are half-dead as well.”

Steve supposes this is about as affectionate as a program can get. It’s pretty impressive.

“Fair enough,” he says, thrilled JARVIS is willing to fulfill his request in the first place after their dispute. “I’m sorry, by the way, JARVIS. For what it’s worth.”

About three seconds of silence proceed JARVIS’ “It’s worth more than you know.”

Following no more than six hours of light, episodic slumbering, Steve is headed back to the infirmary, unsure about what to expect when he walks in, and far too nervous to ask for a sitrep from JARVIS. The information he requested waits patiently for him in a condensed file on his tablet, and he brings it with him in case Tony does ever scrape some sleep together. Or in case he never woke up.

But he did, apparently, and he’s wide awake, and quite pissed off. Steve senses the tension in the room immediately. Natasha and Clint are arguing in hushed voices to his right when he walks in, but that’s not his main concern.

Tony is being belligerent, spearing a frazzled Bruce with ferocious, narrow-eyed aggression, intimidating regardless of his state. He’s been relieved of the neck brace, though his restraints remain and that little text box is up and shimmering. The quivering fingers of his right hand ghost over intangible buttons to type out a glowing:

_‘fuck off, Bruce, u bitch’_

“Tony, please don’t do this,” Bruce is begging from beside him helplessly, holding a suction catheter, and Steve can pinpoint exactly what’s going on, can hear it in the pings warning of Tony’s dipping oxygen levels, “the longer you put it off, the worse it’s gonna be.”

_'give me more O2 and shut up about it'_

“Or you can let me give you a tiny dose of Propofol so we can get this over with,” Bruce insists, and Tony shoots him the finger with his left hand, chews his mouthpiece furiously and glares from where it seems he can’t move his head very much. “You can’t have it both ways, you either let me do this with you awake or sedated, or you will suffocate slowly and painfully.”

“Tony, c’mon, don’t give Bruce a hard time,” Steve offers with a smile as he walks up, setting his tablet on a counter. Tony’s intense regard targets him like a battleship cannon.

_‘go fuck a greased musket, July Fourth’_

“Bad mood, huh?” Steve asks, steeling himself for more, and Tony’s lips quirk up behind all the plastic and tape in a sneer as his fiery eyes follow Steve’s every move.

_‘don’t know, you ever had a pair of wasp’s nests for lungs?’_

Actually, he _has,_ but this isn’t the time for a hardship pissing contest. Steve shrugs. “Feeling like shit?”

_‘didn’t think it could get worse, then you and your wisdom appear’_

He’s spitting at them like a threatened, venomous snake, if that snake had an enormous tube down its throat. It’s pure terror manifesting, Steve knows it, Bruce knows it, they can see it glinting in Tony’s eyes just behind the protective wall of his anger, in the way his fists clench in their restraints. He doesn’t want to do this. The entire thing is awful, and Natasha is probably trying to explain so to a tired, frustrated Clint back there.

None of them are willing to force anything on Tony, will gladly take the time required to talk him down.

“You’re putting me in a really horrible position, here,” Bruce pleads, attempts a hand on his shoulder, but aborts when Tony yanks loudly at a cuff and turns his laser-focus gaze back onto the poor man, who he’s likely to just burn a hole straight through at this point.

_‘back off, Chernobyl, talk about horrible positions? Fuck you’_

“Tony, can’t you hear that?” Steve asks, because even Steve can detect the shockingly loud crackle of resistance in Tony’s breaths. “That can’t be good for you.”

_‘yeah, why do you suddenly give a shit, you fair-weather firework?’_

Eyes narrowed for precision cutting, Tony watches him.

“C’mon, man,” Bruce says, but Tony whips up a hand as far as the cuff allows to silence him.

Steve can’t tear himself away, loses hearing and sight of everything else. He swallows, knows Tony can’t even do that, and just feels worse for it. “Tony… I…”  

The familiar rapping of anxious, tasteful heels echoes in from the hallway, interrupting him, and Tony perks like a cat who’s just heard the dinner bell. Suddenly Steve becomes nothing more than an inconvenient obstruction as Pepper Potts strides in, all long legs, and flaming red hair, sophisticated, respectable and powerful. There a stern pause of her freckled face while she takes in everything and Steve knows how overwhelming it is in here at first glance, but god, she couldn’t have better timing. Then she spots Tony, and visibly deflates with anguish.

“Oh, Tony,” she whispers as she slips her heels off, which she deposits next to the door, padding quickly over on bare, slender feet.

Steve turns to tell Tony he’ll be back later, but not a single word makes it out, too stunned by what he finds to barely form a thought, let alone a sentence with words. In a blunt contrast to his noxious hostility, Tony is watching Pepper with an expression softer than Steve’s ever seen on the man’s face, a terrified, lonely, needful expression. A slow blink at her as she approaches, and woefully silent tears escape to chase each other down his cheeks. Steve’s not sure how he expected Tony to react to Pepper’s appearance, but this… this wasn’t it.

“Oh sweetie,” she murmurs at him, her soft touch feather-light on his forehead, clearly worried she may hurt him. “What happened to you?” He closes his eyes, and leans into it, cries, struggles to breathe, and types nothing.

It’s time to go. This is too intimate for them, and Steve feels a fracture in his heart.

He squeezes Tony’s bicep, doesn’t care if it pisses him off, and turns to leave. “Out,” he says strictly to Clint and Natasha on his way.

With the door closed behind them, Clint groans dramatically. “So, what, he cries a little and gets a free asshole pass?”

“Clint, just shut up,” Natasha grits out, pinching the bridge of her nose.

So, the tension he sensed between them earlier _wasn’t_ imagined. “There a problem, Barton?” Steve asks with narrowed eyes.

“Hell yeah, there’s a problem,” Clint exclaims furiously, gesturing toward Tony’s room, “he gets to sit in there and throw a little tantrum and treat everyone like shit and insult the very people trying to help him? And no one’s allowed to say anything about it? That’s bullshit.”

“Stop being so goddamn stupid,” Natasha snaps, her usual composure unraveling in the face of this to reveal a dangerous, snarling scorn, “he’s drugged to the gills and on a ventilator. I’m sorry your tender little sensibilities overshadow that.”

Clint scoffs. There’s dark circles under his eyes, a badge they all wear. “It’s an excuse, he just wants to be a little shit.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Natasha closes her eyes for a second and clenches a fist like she’s trying very hard not to punch him. “I can’t, Cap, I’ve tried, I just-“

“He called you a venus cock-trap, Nat, really?” Clint huffs a sardonic chuckle, and Natasha rolls her eyes.

“He sure did, but I’m not a sensitive little arrow-chucking Cupid-“

“Okay, okay,” Steve interjects, and sighs when they both look at him with furious expectation. He rubs his eyes, his whole face. The stress is extraordinary. “Clint, Tony’s degree of control is virtually non-existent right now. You really need to just let anything he says to you roll off your shoulder, you know? Maybe insulting us makes him feel like he has some control back.”

“Un-fucking-believable,” Clint says, skeptical eyes darting between the two of them, “he’s not brainwashed or anything, he knows what he’s saying.”

“You can leave, Clint, if this is too hard for _you_ ,” Natasha reminds him nastily.

Clint stares at her, grinds his teeth, nods and walks away.

There’s a chair by Tony’s door and Steve collapses into it, rests elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. His shift hasn’t even begun, and he already feels the weighted shroud of bone-deep exhaustion. That little nap of his was a remarkable waste of time.

“Don’t worry,” Natasha provides, and Steve feels strong, thin arms wrap around him. “He gets like this sometimes, he’ll be back. This sucks for all of us.”

Steve accepts her compassion with a thankful sigh, and wonders how the hell he’s supposed to keep his team together when he feels like he’s falling apart so spectacularly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I love you all! Will reply when time allots.


	15. Chapter 15

His world becomes a fucked montage of horrific realizations.

From fitfully coming around off loopy drugs _again,_ to being convinced he should probably stay restrained, to struggling with the side effects of strong painkillers and sedatives, then having to re-learn how _not_ to breathe: part two… everything just blows at such an astronomical level. Antibiotics mix with opioids to create a bubbling stew in his gut, que more awful, mind-dampening drugs to mitigate it. Every so often, his gag reflex decides to pay him a visit, and Tony is stuck retching silently around an unwelcome tube for entire minutes before it’s graciously overwhelmed again, his body’s reluctant acceptance. He shouts and rages inside his own head.

Bruce worries over him, checks him repeatedly, mutters instructions to JARVIS with a tired slur in his voice. Natasha tries her best, sits cross-legged at the end of his bed and rubs his feet for him, which is kind of nice, he must admit.  Clint’s lounging on the couch, reading the news or something on his phone, and addresses the room about topics of interest sporadically. Tony wishes he could tell them all to go get some damn sleep.

The drugs begin doing their jobs correctly. He sinks into a certain acceptance of it, is just about to pull up data about the gas via his little screen, start some lazy work on whatever upgrades are needed-

And then Bruce shows him his scans, admits his lack of progress. All Tony’s hopes of a short ventilator stint fly out the window, get sucked up in a jet engine, and are shredded down into a gruesome, red rain.

“It’s been fourteen hours, Tony,” Bruce informs him, his voice emanating somberly from far above him as he lays in a future grave and fingers numbly through dozens of frightening images. “There’s no signs of improvement. I need your help.”

Tony is not as well acquainted with any part of his body as he is his chest cavity. If the arc reactor wasn’t visible above them, glowing like some steampunk sun god, Tony wouldn’t believe that those mutilated sacks are _his_ lungs. He stares at them for a long time. It’s like peering into his own mortality, as he had during the palladium poisoning incident, as he did in Afghanistan and on the other side of the universe.  He’s dying, fucking la-dee-da, it must be a Tuesday. The ping indicating his heart rate quickens.

 _Shit._ Frequency doesn’t elicit apathy in this regard.

His attitude becomes so sour, he’s sure he makes a few buttholes pucker, and boo-fucking-hoo, if they can’t handle the heat of his hell, they can escort themselves out of the fire. Misery loves company, and miserable happens to be his current predominate state of existence while he has Satan’s dick down his throat. Punching something is out of the question, so his words don the gloves instead. These people are lucky there’s a burn ward just a few doors down, as Tony has no reservations about spitting fire at them.  

And this goddamn suctioning thing.

It’s too frequent of an event to remain a sensible, approachable human being. All he wants to do is look through the data, but every forty-five minutes or so, his breathing machine sets off a treacherous alarm, and Bruce is back to begrudgingly torture more gunk out of him once Tony displays his consent.

And then there’s his gag reflex, his occasional, unsolicited visitor.

Not to mention the alluring siren call of sleep induced by heavy painkillers.

Don’t forget the tedious effort of slogging through the swamp the sedatives left in his mind, pushing past dense shrubbery and hoping the answer is waiting for him beyond it, because he’s already so tired…

People are talking around him, to him, _about_ him at times, the bastards.

_Shut the fuck up!_

It’s already so difficult to concentrate without the humming chorus of voices construed through a filter of intoxication.

The sixth suctioning event, in the same number of hours, is the last goddamn straw, no pun intended, and he irrationally, vehemently refuses to let Bruce do it. An argument ensues, a mix of digital and audial stone slinging. He smirks as he finally ruffles Bird Brain’s feathers with a well-timed jab, and Natasha takes him aside. They’ve been eating shit from him for a while now. Their resilience is admirable. Tony’s reduced grown men to stutters and snuffles using words alone. Becoming a total ass-hole is his best defense.

Rogers graces Tony with his presence around eight-o-clock and puts on his act. Tony watches him with distrustful eyes. What the hell is his deal, anyway? Showing up like this and displaying concern and empathy he’s never bothered with before. Tony’s genuinely curious, and he truly _does_ want to hear Rogers’ explanation after his heart-wrenching little deer-in-the-headlights moment, but Tony’s whole world happens to walk in. Then, nothing else matters.

_Pepper._

And it’s not how he wanted it to go, her return from the climate conference in Hong Kong. It’s awful like this. Tony’s laying there with tubes in more holes than not, unable to speak, make a noise, breathe normally, and even the mechanical breaths are failing him due to his obstinacy. An entire torso of agony is precariously held back by the thin, aging tethers of drugs, and it cripples and punctuates every slight movement he attempts. Infected arc reactor, broken rib, a pair of three-day-old balloons for lungs, not so great prognosis. What a mess.

If everything had gone according to plan, they’d be on a plane to Boracay in sixteen hours, possibly having plane sex, because he _loves_ plane sex. It was all planned out, they were so excited.

 _I’m sorry, Honey, I’m an idiot,_ he says with his eyes, too embarrassed and depressed to type. There’s no fighting the sting, the burning, and he can’t swallow them back down anyway. Another thing to add to the list of punishments imposed on him by the tough-love of the ventilator. Damn cruel thing won’t even allow him to cry properly. _Please don’t be upset._

“Oh, Tony,” she whispers, in sympathetic awe over his condition. Great, he’s caused her pain again. Totally unacceptable.

His head feels like a cloudy day as she hurries over, and his tears are despicable and as impossible to control as the weather. An elegant hand on his forehead, and Tony is rendered as docile as a lamb. Pepper’s here, he’ll be okay now. Everything will be okay, Pepper knows him better than anyone.  “Oh, sweetie, what happened to you?”

Her touch is warm, smooth, _perfect_ , and he’s so disgustingly sweaty and wretched in comparison. Breathing is starting to become a painful issue. The alarm is sounding louder, more frantic, betrays him and broadcasts his struggle to everyone.

_Dammit, I don’t want to do this, Pep._

Tony closes his eyes, commits to memory every warm detail of her touch, distracts himself from the horror house his body has become and narrows his focus down to that one pleasant feeling. God, he just wishes he could smell her hair, but the machine denies him _that_ too.

Tears stream without regard to his already threadbare dignity.

“Are you going to let a little thing like this beat _you_ , Tony Stark?” Pepper murmurs. His right arm is relived of its cuff and thin fingers lace between his. “You’re so strong, honey. This is just a low point, but you’ll do it eventually, I know you will, you always do. Besides, I sort of like having you around, believe it or not.”

Something soft is carefully dabbing tears away from his cheeks, sweat from his brow. Pepper’s wielding a cloth at him like a weapon of emotional warfare. He’s too upset to look.

“I guess we’ll just have to start calling you ‘Iron Lung’,” she laments, and Tony’s laugh isn’t a laugh at all, just an extra warning ping, and a fitful couple of chest flutters against the machine. Still… it feels good to work his sore lips into something other than a grimace or a silent snarl.

Pepper chuckles for him, and it’s wet and fractured. With a leap of his galloping heart, Tony’s eyes snap open to discover pale cheeks glistening with tears of their own, and Pepper doesn’t cry. Neither of them do, really. _Oh, no, Pep. C’mon._ He lifts his free hand weakly to wipe them away, and she sniffs, presses it against her cheek and smiles wearily at him. She looks so exhausted. Jet lag is a bitch. He reaches for his keyboard.

_‘Please don’t cry, honey. Because then you start that ‘I’m an ugly cryer’ thing, and it’s stupid, you’re not an ugly **anything’**_

“Oh, Tony, if only you could stop dying on live television,” Pepper chides him, and wipes her eyes with the cloth wrapped around a careful finger to avoid smearing expensive makeup all over her face. There isn’t anything he can do but stare at her. She’s so beautiful, even when she’s upset, possibly more so. She would be drop-dead gorgeous with that makeup smeared around like some tribeswoman. She would be fucking stunning covered in dirt and sewage. Inside, she’s a burst of radiant light, and he’s so much darkness in need of illumination.

So, everyone saw him die, huh? Figures.

_‘I’m sorry, Pepper’_

“I don’t need that, Tony,” she says, smiling and combing gentle fingers through his hair. It feels so good he wants to purr. “I need you to cooperate with Bruce so you can get better.”

Tilting his eyebrows up and giving her the ‘look’ isn’t going to do any good for him, but he tries all the same. _‘please, you don’t even know how much this blows, Pep’_

“I was under the impression that it sucked, too.” She grins.

Damn, sarcastic woman of his- Tony glowers. _‘very funny, jerk-lady’_

“Is it like spending three months in captivity?”

His shoulders must scoff for him, and he avoids her gaze irately _‘It’s fucking close, alright?’_

One finely trimmed brow tilts upward along with the right side of her lips. “ _Really_ , Tony?”

Brown eyes dart between a pair of searching blue ones. _‘that’s not a fair comparison’_

“What’s not fair is how much you suffer, Iron Man,” Pepper says, and Tony doesn’t have anything to say to that. “Please just get this over with, okay? I’m sure it’s awful, but you know what happens if you put it off.”

Everything about her is captivating. Anything, he’s decided, he would do anything for her. _‘Okay, but you have to promise me to not spend the night here’_

“Deal,” she says, kissing him, his forehead, his temple, cheek, the small, exposed corner of his lips. It makes him smile, horrible medical apparatus be damned.

_‘seriously, go upstairs, take a shower, get some sleep. Please. Promise?’_

“I promise.”

If he could sigh with relief, he would. _‘I love you. Thanks for coming to see me.’_

“What else would I do?” She asks, smacking his arm playfully.

_‘go relax in paradise without me, like you deserve?’_

“’ _Without you?”_ She repeats, incredulous, and scoffs lightheartedly, “what would be the point?”

“Do you want the Propofol, Tony?” Bruce wants to know, and Tony’s just about forgotten he’s even there.

“You know what? Come to think of it, you should get some sleep too, Mr. Stark,” Pepper answers for him, with a sly look, “maybe something stronger, Bruce?”

A small shake of his head. _‘no time to sleep, I need to figure this out.’_

“Sweetie, you’re as pale as death.”

_‘I know, and I literally will die if I don’t get to work on this, c’mon Pep, don’t be on his side, green isn’t your color’_

“Tony, she’s right,” Bruce’s treacherous, useless opinion. “You can spare a few hours for sleep, your body needs it. Maybe we’ll see improvement-”

_‘are you still here, Bruce Almighty?’_

Bruce scowls at Tony’s furious gaze. “It’s happening, Tony. Nighty, night.”

 _‘fuck you, you failed experiment’_  

He’s starting to feel it, the leaden blanket of it dragging him into dreamland. There’s only seconds left.

“I love you, honey,” Pepper whispers, as things begin to swirl away. Dirty trick, that was. That was… fucking… bastards, all of them

 _Pepper._  

There will be time to apologize to Bruce later. For now, Pepper needs to be the last thing he sees… her wonderful, smiling face…

before he…

takes his forced nap…

_no, no, no, why now? He’s so busy, and this is a massive waste of time_

_that horrid mildew odor of a shitty burlap sack, the confusing, forceful tugging at his arms as he’s yanked toward an unknown fate. It’s becoming tiring, having his battery shoved into his hands and being led blindly away without a clue as to why_

_‘twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine’_

_at least he gets to confirm his step counts. The glass should always be half-full during his very important week. It’s easy to spiral here, momentum is key_

_the five-pound battery weighs as much as the sun. Too frail and sore to cradle it under his arm, he can only hold it close to his belly with both hands and hope desperately that a swift, random jab or shove from his captors doesn’t make him drop it. They do that sometimes. Fuckers_

_‘thirty-five, thirty-six’_

_loud clacking of makeshift locks, the squeal of a large, iron door opening for them_

_‘forty, forty-one’, on the button_

_now, from the door should be seventeen, then a fork… or was it eighteen? Dammit. He’s so disoriented_

_maybe he has a fever, again… A dizzy spell nearly forces him to his knees, but there’s too many claws gripping him to allow that. Every little movement jostles the magnet. It’s an agony he’s almost grown accustomed to by now. He can’t stop shaking_

_what a fucking waste of time this is. According to Yinsen, he’ll be dead in four days without the planned intervention. Where the hell are they even taking him? What could be so goddamn important? He hasn’t done anything wrong, there’s no need to punish him that he’s aware of. It would only hurt him further, along with their chances of receiving their coveted Jericho missile, so what’s the deal, here…?_

_sixteen. It ends up being sixteen steps, and they forked right last time, to go outside, to view his horrid legacy, and Tony vaguely recalls feeling shocked by the depth of the cave, because thirty-three steps remain to reach sunlight from there, if he recalls correctly. Forking left only leads to Hell. No need to count those steps_

_they fork left_

_“no!” he cries out, backpaddles meekly, but the claws hold him with strict grips, “please, what did I do? I haven’t done anything wrong, please, don’t do this-“_

_there’s no way he would survive more_

_“relax, Stark,” a voice he doesn’t recognize speaks English to him, and he’s so shocked by it, he almost drops his battery on his own accord, “I just need you to read something. No pain involved, if you cooperate, that is”_

_shit. This guy speaks English, and so far, there’s only two other people here possessing that ability. Who the hell is he?_

_the door to Hell screams open, the most terrifying sound in here, and he’s shoved inside the tiny stone room with three walls, one door, and the enduring odor of rust and shit. He’s situated on his knees, his chest heaving, his shredded heart, pounding. The bag is ripped from his head with a billow of dust and he coughs like an old mineworker. Yinsen says he has pneumonia_

_there’s no basin of water, thankfully, but he’s blinded immediately by the harsh shine of a camera light_

_the men standing behind the tripod are all shadows. they’re numerous, and heavily armed. He watches them with wide eyes, chances a small, slow movement so he can place his battery down next to him_

_what in the hell is this? They already have their proof of life video, what else do they need from him?_

_it’s instinct, he supposes, to give a shit about his impression in front of a camera. Though he truly doesn’t care right now, he’s suddenly bluntly struck by how filthy he must look, how pale he knows his face is, how he’s growing a full beard, essentially, and giving no fucks about the shape of his hair. His attire is haggard, meant to keep him warm, not sexy. The shabby jacket hangs open at his chest to allow the wires to run unheeded, and his new ornament is plainly visible_

_“read”, Abu Bakaar, the fattest demon, barks his demand and shoves a piece of paper at him. This isn’t the English-speaker, Tony’s sure of it. It’s not the same voice at all, and he’s always had Yinsen translate for him. He’s regurgitating the one word he knows at this moment. He could say it in Dari, if he wished, Tony is beginning to learn it. All his damn computers run in Dari_

_“okay, no problem,” he croaks, clearing thick gunk from his throat, glancing quickly around for a new face, but he can’t make out the details of anyone aside from Bakaar_

_this isn’t so bad. No one’s actively hurting him. It’s just a dumb little propaganda video. He opens the folded note_

_the words are typed, surly to reduce confusion, as Tony’s certain none of these individuals typically write in English. Perhaps they do, though, only when they’re ordering weapons from the dead person currently occupying a position at his company. The fucking dead person who doesn’t even realize how dead they are_

_His vision swims. Sickness and injury have rendered him as feeble as a newborn_

_“People of America,” he begins in as flat a tone he feels he can get away with, “my name is Tony Stark. I-I am your Merchant of Death.”_

_The words impale him. fuck…_

_he silently skims a few more sentences, feels terribly ill and cold, looks up to search for some form of validation that he actually has to do this_

_“read!” Bakaar shouts_

_Tony flinches, swallows vomit_

_“I invent tools of vast misery and devastation, and through them, I live a life of affluence, built over an unseen river of-of blood. I am a, uh… a murderer… the most efficient to ever live. The ballistic letters of my-my name have torn through the flesh of Afghan ch-children-_

_-wow, c’mon, holy shit-”_

_Bakaar fists his hair, and Tony shuts his mouth, tenses for more, mechanically raises his hands, totally not dangerous, completely submissive. He’s got a plan, he doesn’t need to be injured further by being stupid and trying to resist out of a dumb thing like pride_

_“read!”_

_god, this can’t be real_

_after a rough tug, he’s released, and he lowers his hands tentatively. Don’t ever make sudden moves in here, Yinsen’s first lesson_

_within his terror, he’s gone and crumpled the paper. Shaking hands flatten it out_

_A camel spider skitters towards the group from beneath a table with gnashing jaws, causes a moment of hysterical, loud, chattering chaos, before a sandal lands on it with a sickening crunch. The moment should be funny, but nothing’s funny anymore. Tony watches it unfold with complete detachment_

_they’re human enough to be frightened of a spider. How are they capable of hurting Tony so viciously?_

_then again, the way they stomped it…_

_he’s just going to have to zone out. It hasn’t worked very well for him yet, but practice makes perfect_

_“read” it’s become an insistent hiss from a fat snake_

_“American avarice is fueled by the screams of innocents-“ he drones on, but it’s not good enough, apparently, because soon he’s being smacked across the face, and shouted at to speak louder, “and-and I have sold them those screams for billions! My weapons are the best around, and your enemy is awash in them.”_

_he’s gasping it out now, eyes darting to his left where he knows Bakaar waits, anxious for the punishment accompanying his next unwitting fuck up_

_“I am a weapon of-of mass destruction, responsible for more deaths than Adolf H-Hitler,” fuck, that can’t be right... “And now, I’m… now I belong to the Ten Rings. I was, uh, I was,” tears sting his eyes, and he has to fight them, he can’t prove them right. “I was too weak to resist them. Their power is undeniable, and with my weapons, I will… I will make them unstoppable-”_

_Jesus Christ. They’re right. Every bit of it._

_He’s so dizzy. There’s thunder booming off in the distance, rushing blood in his ears. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, slumping forward to all fours, the speech only partially read, he can barely see anything, “I-I can’t do this, I’m gonna… pass… ou-“_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, so many apologies for the two week absence, and the lack of comment replies, I've been very busy and stressed out. I hope everyone's digging this so far. Expect another chapter in a few days!  
> Thanks to everyone for all the love and support, you guys are the best.


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